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KRAFTWERK MY BLOODY VALENS

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THE YARDBIRDS
EDWYN COLLINS

BILL CALLAHAN HUSKER DU

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=. Arewe rolling?

Reg Presley RIP, Bill Callahan,
Hüsker Dü, Bobby Whitlock, The Men
HEN TOWARDS THE end of 1974, The Troggs announce their

12Van Dyke Parks latest comeback single will be a cover of The Beach Boys’ “Good
The Beach Boys collaborator 'fesses up Vibrations”, it’s an occasion for much mocking laughterin the
" offices of what used to be Melody Maker. Dapper assistant editor
16 Wilko Johnson

Michael Watts, who fancies himselfas a bit ofa wag, wonders to no-one's
great amusementifthey should have renamed it “Good Vibrators”, such is the
band'sreputation for a certain sauciness. l'm reminded ofthis because of

the sad recent news ofthe death of their lead singer, Reg Presley.

The inimitable guitarist talks about
his recently diagnosed cancer, his UK
tour plans and his Dr Feelgood glory days

29 Phosphorescent The Troggs then as now are most famous, of course, for their almost
The quietly brilliant Matthew Houck cartoonishly lubricious 1966 version of “Wild Thing”, which if nothing else
certainly put the ocarina on the musical map. When Hendrix subsequently
28 The House Of Love revisits the song, he turnsit into something orgiastic. By contrast, The Troggs’
Themaking of 1988 classic “Christine” take on it was somehow sniggering, a quick cloakroom wank rather than the
32 David Bowie ecstatic fuck ofJimi’s iteration. They go on to have a succession of similarly

suggestive hits, but are never taken especially seriously. They are often regarded
in factas a bit ofa joke. Thisisin part explained by them coming from Andover
and not making much of an attempt to disguise their broad West Country
accents, which in the opinion of sophisticated toffs like the aforementioned
Watts makes them sound like ill-educated yokels. I wonder, however, when
Imeet Reg, just as “Good Vibrations” is released, how much it perhaps suits
Presley to play up to the part of the vaguely gormless bumpkin.

He's back! We present the definitive
review of newalbum The Next Dayand
meet The Dame'slatest collaborators

42 Stephen Stills...
...sets the record straight on CSN,
among other things

48 The Yardbirds a ur À) Whatever, he turns out to be very funny. He's come up to London it turns out
The mighty blues band's life in pictures a d a? mr | ononeofthosenew-fangled high-speed trains, an experience that’s left him
à Woo Troaa:R somewhat breathless. “My word, those things don't ’ arf go fast,” he says, in
90 Fela kuti Presley RIP =

wonderment, as if previous journeys to the capital have been made by horse-drawn coach,
highwaymena potential menace, and stop-overs atinns along the way where Reg, like some
bucolic country squirein an episode of Poldark, would have enjoyed a flagon or two of local

The Nigerian tornado: lover,
freedom fighter, Afrobeat pioneer!

56 Edwyn Collins mead, followed by venison pie, a brace of grouse and the amorous attentions ofa bawdy
Musical highs of the Orange Juice man serving wench. “We didn’t try toimmertate in any way whatso’er the original,” Reg says of
The Troggs’ re-working of “Good Vibrations”. “We wanted to make it diff rent, loik, which
"1 — were difficult with a number loik that. It’s very thought out, as it were. It took three months to
61 New Albums record, y know.” What, your version? “Oooo-er, no! Not ours! The original,” Reg wheezes,
Including: Low, My Bloody like an asthmatic having a turn. “We knocked ours off after an afternoon in the pub."
Valentine, Suede, John Grant, The Troggs’ last big hit had been “Love Is All Around" in 1967. They could badly do with
Edwyn Collins — another one now. “Iwrote quite a few hits,” Presley says. “So we've always hada bit of
: money coming in [his royalties will go through the roof when Wet Wet Wet’s 1994 cover
| Кылы PURINE of “Love Is AllAround” spends 15 weeks at No 1|. But the money’s starting to dwindle now
Blue буа Cull, Stephen Stills and I’dlove to have some to investin the stage act."
What would he spend it on? “Lights,” he says, making it sound as ifuntil now The Troggs
99 DVD & Film had appeared only on stages illuminated by large candles and a couple of bicycle lamps. “I
Bert Jansch, Ken Loach and more thinkthey'd definitely bea help," he goes on, looking forward no doubtto a futurein which

perhaps for the first time the band will be able to see each other onstage. “People expect
abit ofashow when you've had a few hits, evenifthey can't

102 Live
Kraftwerk, Nick Cave & The Bad

remember what they were until you play them and even then ENAS
Seeds, John Murry you can see arf the crowd thought some other bugger did them."
117 Books For more on Reg Presley, see pages 6-7.

Prince Rupert Loewenstein’s

_adventureswithThe Rolling Stones | SUBSCRI BF AN []

118 Not Fade Away

This month's obituaries

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INSTANT KARMA!

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Featuring BILLCALLAHAN | HUSKER DU | BOBBY WHITLOCK | THE MEN
x а [5

1941-2013

Hampshire brickie, UFO connoisseur,
one true wild thing... A rock'n'roll legend

remembered, by the man who christened
him ‘Presley’, KEITH ALTHAM

4 4 "m. NEDAYIN 1965, while I was working at NME, I received a
| phone call from Larry Page, who had just fallen out with

ll The Kinks and was looking for a new band to manage.
Sw “I’ve discovered another band in Andover,” Page told me.
“Гуе named the guitarist Britton, which is nice and butch. The
drummer, Ronnie Bond, I’ve named after James, and I’m leaving the
bass player with his real name of Pete Staples, as it sounds quite
macho. But I have a problem with the vocalist, Reginald Maurice
Ball. What do you suggest?"

“Oh, call him Presley,” I suggested flippantly. And so it was that,
after seeing the new lineup listed in the NME’s Alleycat column that
week, Reg phoned Page to enquire nervously ifhe’d been sacked: who
was this new bloke Presley?

I first saw the embryonic Troggs, at their manager’s invitation, ina
small hall in Kingston-upon-Thames in 1965. When my wife Maggie
and I met them in Page’s flat before the show, they all stood up when
she entered the room. I couldn’t help feeling that this slightly roly-poly
and friendly figure, who sounded like Walter Gabriel, and his well-
mannered group were not exactly bristling with attitude.

Later, though, I watched The Troggs perform to three girls and a dog
in the club, and discovered that onstage they had a thunderous sound
that propelled Presley to become one of the most loved and unlikely
rock stars of the ’6os. Later, they would be hailed as godfathers of
garage rockand punk, be venerated by songsmiths like REM, and earn
the ecstatic praise of Lester Bangs, who dubbed their music “holy”

and, no doubt chemically assisted, wrote
that they were comparable to Marcel Proust

Onstage , he d (Reg thought Marcel Proust was a French

mime artist). That night, they were playing

OCCUDY d Space an eclectic mix of “Louie Louie”, Chuck

Mr SE Berry’s “Jaguar And Thunderbird”, Geno
чл? somewhere Washington's “Hi Hi Hazel” and “Ride Your
«59, .
“70. Pony", some of which turned up later on
м, between OZzy their first album, From Nowhere —
| The Troggs (1966). Reg became alifelong

at Y
uU see 7,
Ww “з. Osbourne and friend, and I wrote the effusive sleevenotes

, ey c t ш 1
$a c. Ж Y A 7. o the follow-up LP, Trogglodynamite,
ari d d urzel although I failed to see any of Proust's deep
E. 99 philosophical truths behind his lyrics like,

“РІ buy you ап island out in the sea” (where
all the bestislands aresituated), or *My lady owns an oil well/Just one
look and you can tell."

The band sounded good and solid onstage, but Reg still struck me as
too polite to Бе the mean and moody rock star he was doing his best to
RegPresley,left, and The imitate. That changed with the powerchords which announced their
Troggs, with Sidney Brent, version of “Wild Thing”. Reg summoned up a threatening vocal to do
owner of London’s Таке 6 ; | ; я : à :
И boutique, Wardour Street; justice to Chip Taylor’s song: ifyou didn’t know him, it could be
May 27,1966 construed as dirty and dangerous.

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 7

MIRRORPIX

. InMay1966, "Wild Thing" entered the NME charts at No
24, and Ronnie Bond cycled over to where Presley was
working in Andover. “I were halfway up a ladder doing some
brick work on a chimney," he remembered, “апа I threw down
my trowel and told the lads to share out my tools. I never went
back." Soon, “Wild Thing" would climb to No 2; by July, it was
No1in America.

My gift of Reg's surname became something of an albatross
for him over the years. Paul McCartney teasingly referred to
himas “Reg Trogg" whenever they met, while Mick Jagger left
more than one message on the NME switchboard that *Reg
Parsley from The Clogs" had rung for me.

Presley was responsible for plenty of comedy himself, most
notoriously the “Troggs Tapes”, that elevated a recording studio
argument into a music business legend and, for a while,
threatened to be a more potent band legacy than The Troggs'
frequently visceral and brilliant music. A chance meeting with
Bob Dylan іп a recording studio added to the legend, as Presley
sat on а stool with his bass guitar in an adjoining studio.

*How long have you been playing bass, Reg?" asked Dylan.

"All fucking afternoon," responded Presley, exasperated.

Presley's Hampshire burr could also lead to a few
misunderstandings over his interest in extra-terrestrial
phenomena. A few years ago, he seemed to ask me what I would
thinkifhe were to open a hole under the "sinks".

“Something blocking the sink, Reg?" I enquired politely.

Creamofthe

cropcircle: Reg fy,

Presleyin1994 |
AA М ,

REX FEATURES

“Noooo, not the sink - the bastard Sphinx,” he grimaced.
Presley had apparently found an archaeologist who'd tapped
into the Sphinx’s paw with an audio hammer in Egypt and
discovered a hollowed-out chamber containing a flying saucer.
Presley had concluded the expedition to locate the UFO would
require funding and, as he knew I hada close working
relationship with Sting (The Troggs played at his wedding to
Trudie Styler), perhaps Га like to approach him for a few quid?

Although *Wild Thing" wasa hymn to rugged sexuality, and
later hits like “I Can't Control Myself”, “Night Of The Long
Grass", "Any Way That You Want Me" and "Give It To Me"
implied something similar, Presley was mostly saucy rather
than predatory. He often looked more comfortable performing
gentler self-penned hits like *With A Girl Like You" and *Love
Is All Around" (a No 5 hit in 1967, that would make Presley a cool
million 27 years later, when Wet Wet Wet's cover stayed at No 1
intheUK for 15 weeks), even though he could ham itup when it
came to heavy metallike the best ofthem. Onstage, he could
occupy a space somewhere between Ozzy Osbourne and a
Wurzel. As a consequence, it was often easy to think of Presley
assomething ofa country bumpkin - until you met him and
discovered his street savvy, enthusiasm, inquisitive nature and
good-humoured intent, plus the infectious laugh that ensured
you wound up laughing with him and not at him. I never heard
him say a bad word about anyone. He was a generous and
kind-hearted soul.

Now, he has hopefully found the answers he was always
searching for. Thetruth is out there somewhere with him and
his flying saucers, corn circles and abductees, wagging his
finger at us sceptics and cackling, “Oi told you so – oi told you
the bastards were out here — you big prannies..."

& | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

Therecalcitrant

Bill Callahan

THE SMOG WHISPERER

How a tenacious new filmmaker got under

the skin of BILL CALLAHAN...

4 A ` VER HIS 24-year recording career,
i @ J William Rahr Callahan has gone
; Ў from making dissonant lo-fi
аге to become one ofthe most elegant,
idiosyncratic voices in Americana. With
2007's Woke On A Whaleheart, he dropped
the name Smog to work as Bill Callahan, a
gesture understandably, but mistakenly,
interpreted as a move toward a more
autobiographical approach. If there's been
one constant over the past two decades, it's
that Callahan doesn't reveal too much in
songs orinterviews, which (speaking from
experience) can be slightly harrowing.
Surely you could think of easier subjects
for your debut documentary; not Hanly
Banks, a young Texas-born, New York-
based filmmaker who has just self-
released Apocalypse: A Bill Callahan Tour
Film with the help of fan-funding solicited
through the Kickstarter website. How do
you get such a private person to agree to
this intrusion? “I sent a 20-word email
to him through |his label] Drag City,” she
tells Uncut. Simple. Callahan agreed, and
Banks arrived in Phoenix, Arizona, in
June 2011 to follow the tour for his last LP,
Apocalypse, over a fortnight in two spells.
Banks’ approach may prove instructive.
“Гатеаа one feature about him, and seen
him perform once,” she recalls. “Other
than that, I was only operating under the
knowledge of the songs. Reading that one
article made me kind of
sick tomy stomach, so
Ijust decided to stop
while I was ahead —
Imadea point to
blindfold myselfto
extraneous information
inasituation where it
was my discovery that
mattered.” The film
opens with Callahan
reading from an article
about himself: “The
New York Times says...

The New York Times says...” The wry
repetition becomes funny, and could be
taken asa remark on the futility of trying
to impose a narrative on his work, though
self-referential is hardly his style.

Nor Banks’; her role is only perceptible
in the awed shots of vast, rural America
through the van window, and in how her
self-described "terrible" interview style
elicited Callahaninto making quite lovely
statements on his relationship with music.
“A lot of [the interviews were] just him by
himself speaking into a mic with a list of
my handwritten questions,” admits
Banks. “Working alone rings true to him.”

“T think when I'm performing live it's just
the realest me there is," Callahan says at
one point. Fittingly, the majority of the
film shows him performing, mostly songs
from Apocalypse, though touching,
personal moments abound. “Lately, my
favourite partis where he adjusts his mic
stand just before playing ‘Say Valley
Maker," says Banks. “He’s wondering
aloud why it took him until the end of his
set to do that. Talk about a metaphor.”

Prior to that moment, Callahan’s voice
plays over footage of him soundchecking
ata festival. "What's happening in my life,
or I overhear a conversation, or something
about a friend, or something I read; those
things show me what т thinking. They
tell me whatIamat that moment. That's

something that I’m
constantly trying to
define, and that's why
Imakearecord, because
thatsaysit." By
eschewing the tide of
narrative, Banks' film lets
Callahan'struth bob to
thesurface. LAURA SNAPES

A DVD of Apocalypse: A
Bill Callahan Tour Film
will bereleased on Drag
City later this year

ALAN REEVELL

Land Speed

Record
Store!

"NF EF YOU WERE one of the few people in
Minneapolis to feel the first stirrings of punk
Jl. rockin the mid-1970s, you would have been
going to see the Suicide Commandos and The
Flamin’ Oh’s. And the place you
would have been going to see them,
the Midwest’s first node on the
emerging US punk rock
underground network, wasa
repurposed former steak restaurant
called The Longhorn. It was here,
loading in their equipment early in
1979, that Terry Katzman first met
Hüsker Dü, a new band who had

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Í and Greg Norton

impressed him on the local scene. ГЕ? | |

Katzman, a Minneapolitan record \ 4 AN X SKE "M together. “I have Hiisker Dü's work were spent, developmentally
store guy and early punk rock MA | strong relationships speaking, “in hyperdrive", a period which
evangelist, helped Grant Hart >> with them,” he says. culminated in their return to Minneapolis in
move some kit, and enthused “They might not see August 1981 after a confidence-building trek
about their band. Hart said, “Why eye to eye with each around the country. The band’s rapid first set on

don’t you come and meet our guitar player, Bob
[Mould]?” and an enduring friendship was born.
In 1987, shortly before the band left for their
disastrous final tour, they played Terry’s wedding
reception. “Luckily my wife was a fan,” he says.
“Though not as big a fan as me...”

Katzman became the band's soundman, later
forming Reflex Records to put out the first Hüsker
Düsingle, 1980's “Statues”/“Amusement”, a 45
which is now being reissued for Record Store Day
(with previously unreleased demos "Writer's
Cramp” and "Let's Go Die") by Numero Group. It's
the kind of high-quality archival release that the
band's early cataloguerichly warrants, but which
amixture oflegal complication and bitter
personal disagreement has hitherto prevented.
Terry has spent five years trying to put something

FromBlow-Up
to jazz-funk...
the versatile

3 Richard Hewson

other but I see eye to eye with all of them, which
has helped with this project.”

The Numero release captures a flavour of Htisker
Diias a group moving fast both stylistically and
physically. 1979 tracks like “Writer’s Cramp” find
the band in a mode they returned to later, vibrant
guitar pop. By the time of the fractionally later
"Statues", however, the band are doing what Bob
Mould described to me last year as an “almost
Factory Records kind ofthing".

"Tliked their ability to combine real pop
elements with a harder-driving abrasive outlook,
plus their focus on speed,” says Terry. “It wasn't
like it was later, but they were still a pretty quick
band. It was a developmental time. Their sound
hadn't crystallised yet."

As Terry remembers it, the first 18 months of

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>» Most famous for his string
arrangements on The Beatles’
“Let It Be" and “The Long And
Winding Road”, Richard
Hewson started out with the
orchestration for Antonioni's
Blow-Up soundtrack, then
various projects for Apple:
Mary Hopkin’s “Those Were
The Days”, James Taylor’s first
LP, the aforementioned Beatles
songs. Around the same time he
also did a string arr. for Nick Drake's
“Magic”. Influenced by the success of Hot
Butter's "Popcorn" bubblegum synth

theirreturn to town comprised their debut album.
1982's Land Speed Record. Among his 100 hours
oflive Dü tapes from 1979-1983, Terry also has
the second set, and would love to help issue a
definitive document of both. Another moot
project would twin a CD of demos with a disc of
rarities — the 25 songs the band played live but
never recorded. Even the glacial speed of legal
negotiations can't dampen Terry's enthusiasm
for this period of Hüsker Dü's transformation:
"Nobody could touch them. For a while that was
their mission — to see how many songs they could
play in 35 minutes." JOHN ROBINSON

"Amusement", "Statues", "Writer's Cramp" and
"Let's Go Die" are released in a double 7" pack by
Numero Group on Record Store Day, April 20

NGING... RICHARD HEWSON

=SSION DI AYERS
ا ات‎ ١١1 Ru PAT bee Ded

instrumental, he wrote and - for the
most part -recorded the RAH
Band's1977 hit"The Crunch" inhis
bedroomin Putney. He would
have another hit in1985 with the
jazz-funk-tinged "Clouds Across
The Moon”, —
ЛАЙТ ГЕ The Beatles’
“Let lt Be” and “The Long And
Winding Road”, Mary Hopkin’s
“Those Were The Days”,
Fleetwood Mac’s Mystery To Me,
Supertramp’s Crisis? What Crisis?,
Kiki Dee’s “I’ve Got The Music In Me",
Cliff Richard’s “Devil Woman”. PHILKING

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | Ө

COCO CARMEL, DENEE PETRACEK

A QUICK ONE
>» Another Uncut
Music Guide hits UK
shopsonMarch14.
Thisone(No14!)is
dedicatedtoThe
| Smithsandfeatures
0 [ 0 | theusualmix of
archive NME and
ERN MelodyMaker
interviews and
B O BBY WHIT LO C K , forensicnewreviews
C | d H ° › bythe Uncutteam.
apton an arrison S Plus, we'vetackled
keyboardist of choice, Se
а | soloalbumandmade
finally returns to | acomprehensive
А survey of Johnny
the spotlight... Marr's post-Smiths
career.
WLENTY MIGHT RECOGNISE BOBBY Bobby Whitlock with
» Bobby Whitlock asa crucial histrusty Hammond Lis > Moregoodstuff
member of Derek & The E hasbeenannounced
Dominos, as the keyboardist- a Herd There's Will forthe End OfThe
guitarist-singer who's all over George "LIE heacknowledges | bought mycontract back from 'em, paid Roadfestival(Aug
Harrison’s All Things Must Pass. Far E M aman “were my for it out of my own pocket.” ib ise
fewer, though, know the couple of strong point”. Still performing with his wife CoCo cds David TN
solo records Whitlock made right after It could have been far different had he Carmel and gratified by the acclaim for his &StVi с Bl жы

those classics, again іп the company of
Harrison, Eric Clapton and several
Dominos. They'll finally get their due
on this spring's Light In The Attic comp,

followed Atlantic producers Tom Dowd
and Jerry Wexler's plan “to do it with NY
musicians. I wouldn't even get to play on
my own record!” Instead Whitlock cut his

recent cathartic autobiography, Whitlock
takes the records’ belated CD debutin

philosophical stride. Back in the early ’7os,

he feels, “They should havejust released

Belle&Sebastian
and Sigur Résas
headliners. Also
newly confirmed:

Where There’s A Will There’s A Way, self-titled debut with contributions by both of those records as a double, but they MarkMulcahy,
which puts both 72 albums onto one CD. Harrison, Clapton, Radle, Delaney & didn't. Nobody saw that they completed a CaitlinRose,

Ifthe mixture of rock, soul, gospel, blues Bonnie, Jim Gordon, Klaus Voormann, picture ofan era. George, Eric, Delaney & de ча
and country is reminiscent of Layla, there’s | Bobby Keys and Jim Price. “Atlantic Bonnie etal — those two records link them we свецу at e
a good reason. “My first record would have rejected it, of course," he says. “So I all together.” RICHIE UNTERBERGER EWhite.

been Derek & The Dominos with me
singing all the lead, had [Dominos bassist]

» More Bowie,

Carl Radle been able to get ona plane when anyone? How

he said he was going to,” points out n aboutaBBC2docin

Whitlock. *He got tied up with Leon horn Tree In The Garde Заск Home In England May, provisionally
Fom Sick & The Dominos’ Layla:w7o0 | from Bobby Whitlock 1972 titledFive Years,

[Russell]. The Dominos, had they stayed

together, would’ve gone that direction.”
And what was that direction? “I’ve

heard that all my career,” he laughs from

After the anguish of Layla's title
song, this poignant Whitlock soul-
folk ballad brings the album to a close

Another of Whitlock's "pretty songs"
(as he calls them), sung with searing
passion and with mournful horns that

focusingonthe
Dame'sactivitiesin
1971,1975,1977,

À i ST : " 1980and1983?Or
his Austin, Texas horse farm. “Every onasimilarly lovelorn grace note. could've come straight from an All maybeParlophone's
direction. I mean, the Layla album, it went Things Must Pass arrangement. 4othanniversary
everywhere. But it was right down the Let it Down remasterof Aladdin

middle of the road the whole time it was
going everywhere." The remake of “Tell
The Truth", on Whitlock's Raw Velvet,
naturally echoes the hardest-rocking
Dominos tunes, though those who loved
his *Thorn Tree In The Garden" on Layla
will find plenty ofthe pretty, folky ballads

from George Harrison's

All Things Must Pass 1970

A wistful heavy rocker, changed from
slow to midtempo with a wailing
chorus (sung by Bobby, Harrison/
Clapton) at Whitlock's suggestion.

from Пау & Bonnie’ sOn

Tour With Eric Clapton1970

Whitlock co-wrote and played keys
onthis rabble-rousing blue-eyed soul
duet, remade for his solo debut.

Sane, out April15?

» Bruce
Springsteen's
nextalbummight
plausiblybea
country project.
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grammy.com. “l
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coupleofmonths
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‘Whataml going
todonext?”” His
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yee аан UNCUT AT THE GREAT ESCAPE

"1
|,

Confirmed for Brighton: PHOSPHORESCENT,
MIKAL CRONIN, WOODS, ALLAH-LAS...

ГГ Г]

b — autobiography
» 1 | | — J remainsawork-in-

(D e” y : ^ It'sthattime of year again. Between MIKAL CRONIN N (pictured left) and progress, though:

4 XE == : May 16 and 18, Uncut's operational WHITE F FENC E; E; underground psych "Theredoesn'tseem
۵ focus shifts to Brighton, where legends W 5; chiming LA tobeanurgency
| ч КА, Ww $ we'll be curating a stage at the revivalists LAH-LAS; and toreturntoitat
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К Great Escape Festival. This year, our | |. Not bad, eh?

>» Visituncut.co.uk
formorenews, plus
regularblogs,
reviewsandmore-or-
lessseminal Uncut
archive features.

selection of performers will include
Манка Houck’ s marvellous
HORES IT (interviewed
+ nies p on page е 22); two
talented accomplices of Ty Segall,

The Great Escape takes place at venues
across Brighton, May 16-18. Early Bird
tickets for the whole festival cost£45.
More info: www.escapegreat.com

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« X INCE RELEASING 2011’s Leave Home,
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LJ Brooklyn's The Men have undergone a
dramatic transformation. It began with 2012's Open
Your Heart, which introduced country, doo-wop
and surfinto the band's music, and continues with
their latest album, New Moon, a sort of psychedelic
country set that starts with piano and acoustic
guitar on the jangly, Big Star-like “Open The Door”.
“Itis a pretty large departure,” admits guitarist
Nick Chiericozzi. “That song is a new introduction as
we're a different band now. Ben [Greenberg] and
Kevin [Faulkner] joined and we all write together,
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upstairs, and that became the centre of operations.”

The album was produced by Greenberg, who
joined as full-time bassist along with Faulkner, the
band’s photographer and lap steel player. “Being
outside the city with no cellphone access was good,”
says Greenberg of their Big Indian stint. “There was
freedom but also limitations, so if something broke
we just had to deal with it. The beauty of the situation
is that it puts so many things out of your hands. It’s
about balancing the freedom and riding roughneck
at the same time. It was very loose but we also
worked 20-hour days for two weeks.”

This balance between being comfortable, but not
so comfortable they stagnate, has
ensured The Men retain their edge

some sing-songy Neil Young stuff, and
going for a come-on-in, check-it-out
vibe. The rest of the LP goes through
the full spectrum of emotions.”
Indeed it does, as the album moves
through country-blues (“Half Angel
Half Light”), sludge rock (“I Saw Her
Face”), winsome country (“High And
Lonesome”), Stooges thrash metal
(“The Brass”), swampy CCR choogle
(“Birdsong”) and Boredoms-style
monster jam (“Supermoon”) while
maintaining adownhome (but very
loud) atmosphere, due to relaxed
production and front-porch
harmonies. “We rented a house
upstate in Big Indian and I threw every
instrument I own in the van,” says
Chiericozzi. “We put the eight-track

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SACRED BONES, 2011
Deliriously in-your-
i grillheavy rocker,

combining sludge and space
rock with deft nods to
Spacemen 3, the Ramones
and Sonic Youth.

“They remind
me of the energy
NY bands had
when Sonic Youth
started out. Totally
fierce... rocking
out.” Lee В |

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SACREDBONES, 2012
A shiftin tempo,
as country influences start
to come out ("Candy") and
the aggressive hardcore is
tempered by a cheerier
outlook.

С f
621 19

even as they evolve (*We printed the
lyrics sheet in this one for the first
time," notes Chiericozzi proudly). The
journey from hardcore to harmony is
one taken by others in the past - The
Replacements are one comparison,
but more apt might be the Meat
Puppets - and The Men are happy to
acknowledge their debts. Musical
references abound in their lyrics, titles
and melodies, but playfully and
always with creative intent. “That
comes from the fact most things have

been done before,” admits Chiericozzi.

“Sure, we rip stuff off, but we also
want to hear everyone’s personalities
and contributions, and we hope
there's a soundin there that is unique,
as well." PETER WATTS

- m LIF" LAS | "^ ^.
NIE M

s NEW MOON

| s IL sacreDBones, 2013
"~~ Beautifully eclectic

- ~~ butconsistent in

! soundand spirit, New Moon

. sees The Men take on two new

ı members and further mix

| cosmic country with punk,

| sludge, spacerock and more.

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MCII MERGE

As Ty Segall takes a well-earned breather,
his bassist steps back into the spotlight with
a bunch of sunkissed garage pop songs
every bitas good.

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3 CHAPERONE

The flipside of Low’s The Invisible Way. Alan
Sparhawk initiates two mighty 20-minute
jams, including a seismic joust with Nels Cline.

РЕ агты Ass Im.

Wakin’ On A Pretty Daze
MATADOR

“There was a time in my
life when they thought

I was all talk...” Vile

ups the languid
braggadocio and
insidious loops on an
outstanding fifth album.

MESSENGER

Haw PARADISE OF BACHELORS
North Carolina's prolific MC Taylor further
honeshis soulful, creative take on American
musical traditions. His best yet, possibly.

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YOUTUBE KEY WORDS: NEIL YOUNG BORN

Neil covers Broooooce, with Nils Lofgren
onsynth. Uncut eats itself.

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UNCLE ACID & 1
Mind Control RISE ABOVE

Heroically galumphing stoner rock, much
in the vein of early Sabbath and Queens Of

The Stone Age.

rik VEALYDEAI

THEKNIFE

Shaking The Habitual rasip

Sprawling gothic fantasia from Stockholm.
Includes incredibly-tooled techno-pop, and
about 20 minutes of ambient hum.

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= CC

COLIN STETSON
New History Warfare Vol 3: To See More
Light CONSTELLATION

Therad saxophonist from Bon lver returns,
with his fearsome foghorn blasts this time

augmented by Justin Vernon.

I IDDA DY СУ FCANINC
LID Y Ul

Wavy Heat wiLbsAGES
A clutch of new releases from cosmic outlier
NayNay Shineywater, ex-Brightblack
Morning Light, crowned by this drone
cassette featuring Colm О Cíosóig of MBV.

"LE

CIRRV HAYNES

Paul’s Not Home THIRDMAN

Superbly juvenile ramalam from Jack White
andthe Butthole Surfers frontman. Gibby
Haynes is 55 years old.

Forregular updates, check our blogs
at www.uncut.co.uk and
follow @JohnRMulvey on Twitter

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 11

AARON FARLEY

AN AUDIENCE WITH..

Van Dyke

Parks

The dapper songwriter, arranger and Beach Boys collaborator discusses Smile,
pocket squares, Twin Peaks and why he turned down an offer to join The Byrds

— 1 ith his distinguished Southern drawl
and neat moustache, Van Dyke Parks
can appear more likea gentleman
Confederate officer than a venerated
musician who has worked with Joanna
Newsom, Tim Buckley, Randy
Newman, Richard Thompson, Rufus
Wainwright and, of course, Skrillex.

Although he boasts one of the greatest contact books in music,

Parks is still best known for his work with The Beach Boys. In
1966, Brian Wilson asked Parks - a child actor and trained
musician - to write lyrics for Smile. And as well as his own
albums, like 1967's Song Cycle, there's the other stuff — children's
books, soundtracks, music videos, acting... *Ihave days off, but
Iswearto youl am unsettled,” he admits. “I like to work all the
time, on music." Despite that, he’s happy to spend an hour ona
hot day in California answering questions from fans and peers.
“Listen to the wisdom ofa fool,” he laughs. “Let’s do this.”

STAR QUESTION

Your inventive
and beautiful
arrangements
are the stuff of
legend. Do you
havea preference,
arranging and
composing, or writing lyrics?
Jonathan Wilson
Absolutely arranging. Itisaless
abstract process. I love both of those
arenas but lyric writing will offera
man of great certainty the ability to
paint himself into a corner. It always
feels life-threatening. I approach an
album as a life-defining moment
and I have to be careful because
it’s like throwing raw meat to the
dogs. It's a humiliating, generous,
sacrificial gesture. You want to
do something beautiful that will
not inspire animosity but levity
and enlightenment.

Do you still get royalties from
Disney for arranging *The Bare
Necessities?"

Sarah, Portland

12 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

When I get my royalty cheques
Ialways ask my wife, “Are you
sticking with me?" And she'll say,
“Tm sticking.” And then I tell her,
“$2.78.” I did The Jungle Bookin
1963. Iwas frightened to death.

I stood on the podium and the film
was projected on a huge screen

in this giant room. A voice came
out of this cavernous control room
and asked “Are you in the mood?”
I didn’t know what he was saying
or who he was saying it to. It

was frightening butit wasn’ta
complicated arrangement. It
changed my life. Г never forget
taking that cheque with Mickey
Mouse on it to the bank. The teller
laughed. She didn’t know how
significant it was to me.

How is composing a piece of
score different from writing a
song, ifitis? And should your
pocket square match your socks
or your tie?

Joe Henry
Joe is one of the dapperest scenesters
that I’ve ever met, he is always
meticulously assembled. I’ve always

Atrue mother of
| invention: Van
| Dyke Parks today J
Ҹ $ >

liked to triangulate vectors, so

they play against each other. I’m
talking about socks, handkerchief
and tie and ifthe result resembles

a Haitian postcard, it still makes a
statement. His question about song
versus score, well, a good score
issometimes best when it's felt

and not heard, but takes the

same powers of invention. Jerry
Goldsmith said, *When you score
aman galloping across the screen,
youscore the mind of the man not
the hooves ofthe horse." Sometimes
it’s valuable for a score not to be
heard, while a song has to be heard.

Isittrue you have a brief cameo
in Twin Peaks?

Rob Irving, Dundee
I’ve never understood that. I was
hired to do a small part as an
attorney. The director, Graeme
Clifford, called and asked me to do
it. lwasn’t doing anything else that
day, so I said yes. I don’t watch
television but I knew that people
wanted to know who killed Laura
Palmer. I was walking down the
street with this script and I had this

Interview: Peter Watts
Photograph: Getty Images

incredible sense of power
because I knew who did it.

If “Surf’s Up” isn’t the

greatest song you’ve been
involved in, whatis?

Jamie Goulding, High

Wycombe

My God, I cannot do that. I can't
answer that. I think I’m doing
my best work now. I celebrate
“Surf’s Up” because so many
people interpreted it favourably,
but I don’t subscribe to that song,
it’s not the nature of my beast.
But that song has persuasive
power and there’s a lot of heart.
It was tremendous work for
two very young fellows. Many
people listened to that song and
ifit made kindness contagious, it

hit the mark.
Here’sa
E challenge: Van
| Dyke, have you
written an opera?
And if not, I dare
you to. It’s
something I
would love to see and hear.
Rufus Wainwright

Well, [don’t know what that term
means. There is a difference
between ‘opera’, ‘operetta’ and
‘Broadway trash’ but I don't really
know what that is. I accept the
challenge, but if ‘opera’ means
playing to an audience that
represents just one per cent

of our population, then I’m
notinterested. I don’t want

to play to the tux set, I want to
play to the street. Opera has
astigma that needs to be

dealt with, but I feel Pm

getting there.

\ “Twas disgusted

: | with the idea of
í trying to sing
n» À while teenage

EN girls screamed”

Brian Wilsonand Van Dyke Parks during
the making of Smile, 1966; andinset,
Parks with brother Carson, left, asthe
Steeltown Two, Rouge Et Noir Coffee
House, Seal Beach, California, 1961

What wasitlike
playing music
with your
brothers when
you were kids?
Eliza Carthy
I was the youngest
of four. I played clarinet, the next
played coronet, the next played
French horn and the eldest played
double-barrel euphonium. We
played together in the parlour and
music was everywhere. Many
hymns take me back there, low
church, Methodist tunes, I have an
undiminished connection to those
musical experiences. Eliza’s family
have this encyclopaedic knowledge
of folk. Martin Carthy, Eliza’s father,
stayed a week at my house once
and I didn’t play a note Iwas so
frightened. Then on the day he left,
I played a piece and waited. Ten
minutes later he came down and
asked me what it was. I got him! But
l'mintimidated by the scope and
grandeur of what they bring, the
physicality of old rhythms from
a pre-industrial age.

Why did you turn down The
Byrds when they asked you
to join in 1966?

Isabel Serval, Hendon
I was disgusted with the idea of
trying to sing while teenage girls
screamed. I knew the group was
going places, but it wasn’t for me. I'd
quit the Mothers Of Invention before
that. didn’t want to be clapped at.
But to disagree isn’t to disrespect,
and I respect The Byrds and I respect
every one of The Beach Boys. I just
didn’t want to beina groupand
perform. I wanted to learn in the
studio. I was interested in recorded

MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES, JASPER DAILEY/PETER REUM COLLECTION

14 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

| music. That's why!
didn't go on the road
and get laid.

Can you talka little

bitabout your

formaltraining?
Bill Frisell

When Iwas nine I

joined the Columbus

Boys Choir and that

immersed mein а:

music. But I had that

at home, watching my

parents dancing to

Fats Waller. That was asinstructive
as anything Iwas taught. But my
formative education began in 1952. I
learned how to breathe, how not to
be the centre of attention. I wept over
the piano. I went from first-chair
clarinet when my feet couldn’t hit
the floor to La Bohéme at the
Metropolitan Opera. I played a street
urchin. I’ve been in music my whole
life, and ended up in whatis

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to *Good Vibrations", which cost
$64,000. That's one single. That was
alot of meditating in the Bentley. The
fact Song Cycle cost more than ZZ Top
is there were more people playing. I
put that money into an orchestra and
Warner Bros complained they’d lost
money, but I opened the gate for
people to overproduce their own
records. I made every mistake that
could be made but learnt fromit. I’m
very pleased with Song Cycle. I’m

“ГЇ never be in the Hall Of Fame,
noramIwith the one percent
— [mamaverick, unbranded"

considered a lowbrow biz, but Гуе
never felt in either world. I’m never
going to bein the Rock And Roll Hall
Of Fame, погат I with the one per
cent. l'ma maverick, unbranded.
l've always made my living doing
things beneath the dignity of others.

How did Song Cycle come to cost

so much and was it worth it?
Alan Hill, Lancs

It didn’t cost so much, not compared

delighted with its abstraction. Ifyou
complete something on that scope
at the age of 24, I take my hat off to
you. Was it worth it? Without doubt.

How do you feel about the most
recent incarnation of Smile?

Matt Lisle, South Croydon
I'm happy that there is a commercial
use of the songs. I’m happy they
finally ate some crow. It did very well
asanaudio event. The only thing left

. =“ >t

is for it to be filmic but I have no
plans to do anything with Brian.

Why did Frank Zappa call you
Pinocchio?

Charles Davies, Maine
Well, Pinocchio went off with the
bad guys and got in trouble. Zappa
hada nickname for everybody. But
Icouldn'ttake the lysergic, ah, the
intensity of the situation. The music
was highly inventive and Frank was
immensely gifted.

How did you end up working
with dubstep star Skrillex?
Roberto, Bari
Idida session for Skrillex. It was
with over 50 people. I loved it. All
Iknowis he phoned me and I said,
“Tm sorry, I have no idea
who you are.” He said he
wasin Belgium and had just
played for 350,000 people.
I YouTubed him and saw a
man onstage pouring beer
into a laptop while a huge
crowd hadan erection, and
jumped in the moshpit. I
thought, ‘My God, I don't
understand what is
happening here’, soIsaid
I'd doit. Hesaid, ^Mr Parks,
we will destroy the world,”
andIthought, ‘Hey man,
my ship has come in.’

What was і like playing
piano for Ramblin’
Jack Elliott near the
whorehouses of
Winnemucca, Nevada?

Tom Russell
It was so refreshing for me to play for
Ramblin’ Jack. I like rusty nails and
that’s what he is. He’s at the peak
of his powers at, what, 81. I went to
one of his cowboy poetry gatherings
in Utah. It was surreal. Jack was
determined I'd wear a hat. In Texas
they say of a charlatan he's “all hat,
no cattle", so my motto was “no hat,
no bull? and that's howI got on with
those cowboys. He'sa hero to them.

Your 1975 album Clang Of The
Yankee Reaper was advertised as
“the damnedest thing I’ve ever
heard”. What's the damnedest
thing you’ve ever heard?

Hitch Edwards, Kentucky
The damnedest thing I ever heard
was when I first stood in front of two
speakers and heard a train go from
leftto right. That thing called stereo
sound, that technical device, I fell in
love with stereo. I started mixing my
product in quadraphonic because
I thought the automobile industry
would use it. І square stereo. ©

(C UNCUT.CO.UK

Log onto see who’sin
the hot-seat next month
and to post your questions!

TRE NEW ano

Song For Zula
Tremulous mystery from Matthew
Houck’s sixth album under the
Phosphorescent flag, all dreamy
synths, pedal steel and baroque
violins ona tune with a haunting,
classical pedigree — Vivaldi or
Pachelbel’s ‘Canon’, perhaps?

JOHN FULLBRIGHT
Jericho
Hailing from Woody Guthrie’s
hometown, the 24-year-old Okie’s
gravelly, modern-day iterations of
the troubadour tradition earned his
debut a Grammy nomination as
best Americana album last month.

He blows a howling harmonica, too.

LOW
Plastic Cup
Beguiling minimalism on the
opening track from Low’s 10th
album, ап accusatory tale of drug
tests and pissing in plastic cups
(pace Lance Armstrong?), given an
understated gravitas by producer
Jeff Tweedy.

HISS GOLDEN
AESSENGER

Гуе Got A Name For The
Newborn Child

Domestic dreams, meek and
mild, and hopes of deliverance
from the darkness from the
prolific MC Taylor, taken from
the follow-up to 2011’s Poor Moon.
(He doesn’t tell us, but he named
his ownson Elijah, in case you
were wondering.)

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Textured layers of echoing
keyboards and swirling loops are
coupled with a weirdly wonderful
and crackling retro cocktail-jazz
coda from the My Morning Jacket
frontman, who heads into
unexpected new territory on
his solo debut.

EDWYN COLLI
In The NOW
An urgent, driving celebration
of being alive from the former
Orange Juice singer, the vital signs
underpinned by the pounding of
Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook.
After nearly losing his life to a brain
haemorrhage a few years back, why
wouldn't he?

b 4 $^. N Ui b "т" h 47%
MU |

IT MORIAH

Whi ite Sands

Leaving behind their post-punk
and black metal backgrounds,
guitarist Jenks Miller, and
Heather McEntire – who sounds
deliciously like a wilder, younger

Dolly Parton — head for the hills

Matthew Houck aka
Phosphorescent

UNCUT

EDWYNCOLL

and the new/old weird America
onastandout track from the second
MM album.

BILLY BRAGG
DDILL I IC FANS
No One Knows Nothing
Anymore

A bucolic-sounding Bragg returns
to the Americana/roots sound
of'98's Mermaid Avenue. Recorded
live without overdubs and
produced by Joe Henry, Bon Iver's
Greg Leisz adds lilting pedal steel.

BEA ЕЭ ЕЗ E P Cih
| pa ‘ert м
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Воппіе Вгае

Paul's lad (although “Bridge Over
Troubled Water" was still in the
charts when he was born so he's
now a greying fortysomething)
shows it'sin the genes but sounds
more like his own man than

his old man on a fizzing pop-rock
gem from his second album,

AC) [NI
S8 471 |

Division Street.
CHRISTOPHER

C YW E R is

A Broken Heart

Romantic devastation and
exquisitely sculpted chamber-
folk-pop - justa taster of the 29-
minute song cycle, Lysandre, that
constitutes Owens' first solo album
after walking away last year from
hisroleas the frontman of Girls.

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Cold Hard Fact

“Cold Hard Fact” is classic
Southern roots-rock that climaxes
in delirious Allman Brothers/
Lynyrd Skynyrd-style guitar
duelling from Cody Canada and
Seth James over Steve Littleton’s
surging organ stanzas. Find it

on the Texan quintet’s second
album, Adventus.

FFATURING!UIM JAMES/PHOSPHORESCENT
INS/LOW/CHRIST
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Falling Snow

Theonly instrumental on this
month's CD - but aslyrical an
evocation of wintry stillness as was
ever conjured. From the Vermont-
based guitarist's overlooked 2010
solo album, Cross Latitiudes,
released now for the first timein
Europe and the UK.

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Counting Sailboats

Dazed, halcyon guitars and
superior paisley pop from the self-
produced debut by the Chilean
psych-rock couple, Ives Sepülveda
and Manuel Parra, brought to the
world by NY's transcendentally
cool Sacred Bones label.

THALIA ZEDEK BAND
Walk ANAY
Viola-nuanced melancholy and
ghosts who won'tlet you be on the
brimming opening track from the
first albumin five years from the
veteran Boston rocker and former
Live Skull/Come singer.

ETHAN JOHNS
Don’t Reach Too Far
Analogue authenticity anda
raunchy “Gloria”-quoting garage
riff, as the in-demand producer
(Laura Marling/Ryan Adams/Kings
Of Leon) steps out from behind his
mixing desk to introduce himself.

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Norther California Girls
“There ain’t nobody like me out
there,” David Lowery sings as we
close with a track from the fine,
long-overdue first LP in nine years
from CVB - inspired, he says, by the
band's “fake hippy/surfer side".

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 15

PIETER M VAN HATTEM; JO McCAUGHEY; JIMMY KING

Wilkoathomein
Westcliff-on-Sea,
February 4, 2013

16 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

In December 2012, the mighty WILKO JOHNSON was diagnosed with terminal cancer

ofthe pancreas. This month, he embarks on an emotional last tour of the UK. First, though,
hereunites with Uncut Editor Allan Jones, an early champion of Dr Feelgood, to talk of Canvey
Island, his remarkable old band, and even the future. “When we left the hospital, I felt elated.
I'ma miserable so-and-so — feeling like this was unusual..."

F YOU CATCH the train out of London from
Fenchurch St station, Westcliffis nearly at the
end of the line. This seems appropriate, because
so is Wilko Johnson, who we are here today to
meet. Last month, it was announced the former
Dr Feelgood guitarist had been diagnosed with
terminal cancer of the pancreas. He had refused
chemotherapy and therefore been given less
than ayear to live, during which time he would
recorda last album and health permitting play a farewell
tour. On hearing this news, the memories of fans who saw
the band in their incendiary early prime may likely have
turned to those legendary nights in 1973, when the
Feelgoods first tore up London’s pub rock scene, mad dog
R’n’B monsters who thrillingly established a reputation as
the most exciting British rock'n'roll band since the '60s club
heyday of The Who and The Rolling Stones.

This was a time when the woeful indulgences of prog-rock
prevailed. The Feelgoods by contrast were lean and
frighteningly intense, their music raw and feral. Wilko’s
guitar was central to their sound — carnal blues riffs,
essayed with slashing ferocity, frenetic choppy chords and
no solos to speak of, the songs too short for pointless
virtuosity. They looked fantastic, too – sharp-suited, crop-
haired, like people you might see at the shoulder of some
gangland godfather. They blew a gaping hole in the day’s
musical fabric, through which a few years later the punk
hordes would pour, partly inspired by their example. Their
1976 live album, Stupidity, made them briefly the biggest
band inthe UK, butit was almost all over for the original
lineup. During fractious sessions for its follow-up, Sneakin’
Suspicion, Wilko fell out with vocalist Lee Brilleaux, John B
Sparks and drummer John Martin (universally known as
The Big Figure) and walked out of the band. The Feelgoods
continued without him and, with replacement guitarist
John ‘Gypie’ Mayo, had their biggest hit with 1979’s “Milk
And Alcohol”, produced by Nick Lowe.

1947 Born John Peter
Wilkinson on Canvey
Island, on July 12

1968 Meets singer
Lee Brilleaux

1970 Travels to India
and Afghanistan
1971Dr Feelgood form
1974 Debut LP Down
By The Jetty released
1976 Live album
Stupidity reaches No1
in the UK chart

1977 Wilko leaves

Dr Feelgood. He forms
The Solid Senders
1980 Joins lan Dury &
The Blockheads

1981 Goes solo

1994 Lee Brilleaux dies
2004 Wilko's wife of
37 years, Irene, dies

of cancer

2010 Julien Temple's
rock doc Oil City
Confidential is
released; Wilko acts in
Game Of Thrones
2012 Autobiography
Looking Back At Me
published; diagnosed
with inoperable cancer
of the pancreas

2013 March tour

announced

Wilko’s solo career was less illustrious. Following a spell
with Jan Dury’s Blockheads, he for many years madea
steady if unspectacular living on the club circuit here and in
Europe, a somewhat overlooked figure. The Feelgoods, too,
forjustas long, seemed to be forgotten, their vital early role
inthe punk insurrection that followed largely ignored.
Julien Temple's Oil City Confidential redressed the balance
somewhat, Wilko the film's eccentric star turn, surely a
national treasure in the making. Last year's overdue All
Through The City 4CD box, meanwhile, was a startling
reminder of what the band had been, which at their best was
pretty much as good as it gets. Wilko’s career simultaneously
had taken a wonderfully unexpected turn when he was cast
asa grim-faced executionerin HBO's Game Of Thrones.

And now, he's dying. But not so fast that he can't find time
for one last interview with Uncut, in which over a couple of
hours helooks back with fondness and some regret at his
time with the Feelgoods, their days of glory and eventual
falling out, and facing up to the illness that will claim him.

UNCUT: When was your cancer actually diagnosed?
WILKO JOHNSON: Just before Christmas. My son, who was
over from Manila, noticed I was pissing blood. I would have
ignored it, but my son took me into the A&E, forced me to go
actually. They examined me and said, "You've got this mass
in your stomach,” which Га been aware of for some time, but
Га justignored it. I first noticed it last summer. I thought it
might have something to do with the fact that after being
teetotal all my life, in my dotage, I’ve taken up drinking. We
hadanight out and I started drinking absinthe, quite a bit of
it. Inthe morning, I could feel the lump again and I'm like
“What’s this? I know. It's my liver." Years ago, when Iwas in
India, I had hepatitis and I was told I should never drink
again. Of course, it had nothing to do with that.

Anyway, they did these tests. Shortly after that they did a
biopsy, which is an experience I wouldn't want to go
through again. It's a bit freaky. Then, we went in just

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 17

GUS STEWART

| ALL THROUGH

ШЕЕ ESSENTIAL

/ |
ү ү | A U

TRACKS

DR FEELGOOD

THE CITY"
(DOWNBY THE JETTY,
1975)

From the Feelgoods’
debut album, a
powerful introduction
to the oil refineries and
landscape of Canvey -
"Stand and watch the
towers burning at the

break of the day".
DR FEELGOOD —

"BACK IN THE NIGHT
(MALPRACTICE, 1975)
Contains one of Wilko's
definitive machine-gun
riffs. The single version
was apparently
recorded with little
help from the rest of

the band.

| DR FEELGOOD

"ROXE ИТР

| (STUPIDITY, 1976)

Blistering live take of a
Down By The Jetty
highlight. A typical
Feelgoods yarn about
anuntrustworthy
woman, driven by
Wilko's restless guitar.

OR ee

"SNEAI

| nnininl
en VL

| QUOFILI ir

| (SNEAKIN'SUSPICION,

1977)

US producer Bert de
Coteaux glosses up
the band’s sound.
Fortunately, he can’t
clean up this grubby
slice of Canvey noir.

WILKO JOHNSON'S
SOLID SENDERS

"nn nunnrr'
DR DUPREE

| (SOLID SENDERS, 1979)

Originally sketched out

18 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

Down By The Jetty

for the Feelgoods,

this developed into

a reggae song about
sinking ships and exotic
strangers for new band

the Solid Senders.

IAN DURY & THE
ызы

"| WANT TO B

STRA ЛА IGHT”

(LAUGHTER, 1980)
Arguably the best track
from Wilko's time in the
Blockheads' rhythm
section; their first
single together.

WILKO JOHNSON
“ICE ON THE
MOTORWAY
(ICEONTHE
MOTORWAY, 1981)

Edgy, intense title track
of Wilko's solo debut.

WILKO JOHNSON

"BARBED WIRE BLUES”
Dee WIRE BLUES,
1988)

First fruits of sessions
featuring new, regular
band - including
Blockheads bassist
Norman Watt-Roy,
whose dextrous funk

grooves shine here.

WILKO JOHNSON

"90! E KIN Ü П R J"
(GOING ДЕХ НОМЕ ,
1998)

Wilko's Іугіса luck with
womenis not looking
up on his last album of
original songs to date.
This one has “footprints
around her window".

WILKO JOHNSON

"p ARADISE"

(THEBESTOF WILKO
JOHNSON VOL 1,2010)
Tribute to his wife,
Irene, originally
recorded by the
Feelgoods. This
version, updated in
2004 after her death,
is predictably moving:
"My tears are falling,

l ain't ashamed."

before Christmas for the results. In
the meantime, we all had a go at the

diagnosis. The consensus was that it was a
cyst, and they'd just cutit out. So when we
went in for the results, I wasn't expecting
them to say it was cancer. But the doctor said,
"This massin your stomach. It's cancer and
it’s inoperable.” My son cracked up. I was
absolutely calm. I just nodded. I went “OK.”

When we left the hospital, I felt elated. That’s
the word. You never know what your reaction
is going to be and at the best of times Im a
miserable so-and-so. I’ve 1
suffered from depression |
all of my life since my
teens. So feeling like this
was a bit unusual, but
this elation remained all
day and was still there
when I woke up the next
day. I realised there’s
nothing to be hung up
about, because the past,
the present, the future: it
doesn’t mean anything.
So this elevation of spirit
remained. You walk
down the street just
tingling, man, and you feel so alive. You notice
every little thing — every bird against the
sunlight, everything — and just feel absolute
calm. At times it amounted to euphoria.

Were yousurprised at your reaction? Yes,
totally. It’s been over a month now. Normally!
don't keep a feeling, especially a good feeling,
for more than a few hours. Usually, I find
something to mess it up. But it's remained. It's
like you've been given the ability to existin
the moment you'rein, without bothering

“The doctorsaid
'Itscancerand it’s
inoperable. My
son cracked up.
Iwas absolutely
calm. I nodded
and went OK

about the taxman, or anything. You realise
what a marvellous thing itis to be alive. When
the illness hits me, I don’t think ГИ be quite so
jolly, as гт a complete wimp when it comes to
illness. But right now, I’m feeling fine. And I’m
hoping this feeling will last a while longer.

Canvey Island looms large in your life
and also in the legend ofthe Feelgoods.
What was it like growing up there? You
need a movie to tell the Canvey story. It’sa
place that keeps on changing. When Iwas a
lad, itwas more or less
rural. Canvey Island is
reclaimed marshland. It
was constructed in the
17th Century. They got
Dutch engineers across,
‘cos they're good at
draining land. They built
aseawall around it and
made this island. Oh, it
was mysterious then. It
was all unmade roads.
People were living in
shacks and railway
carriages. There were a
few proper houses, but it
was a bit ofa shanty town. When I went to the
grammar school up here in Westcliff, 'cos
there isn’t a grammar school on Canvey
Island, I met people who didn’t dare to go
down to Canvey Island. They used to say,
“Goodness knows what kind of chainsaw
massacres take place down there.” In fact, it
was anice place. There was a disastrous flood
in 1953, which is one of my first memories...
looking out of the back window and seeing
the sea where there used to be field. There
were waves rolling up to our back door.

Left: OTE LeeBrilleauxinthe Feelgoods' hevday. Top: ithe
original lineup (Brilleaux, John B Sparks, Wilko and John ‘The Big Figure’
Martin). Above: Wilko withlan Dury & The Blockheads, 1981

Was there a music scene on Canvey when you were
growing up? No. Like any small town, you’d go down the
local youth club, and there would be half a dozen bands
practising. But the real scene was in Southend. There were
acouple of very good clubs and there were two great groups,
The Paramounts, with Gary Brooker and Robin Trower, and
Mickey Jupp’s band, my favourites, The Orioles. Mickey Jupp
could sing like Elmore James and his guitarist Mo Whitham
remains one of the best Гуе seen. I used to go along there
and plonk myself in front of Mo and hope I could maybe
learn something. That was where the music scene was.

By thetime the Feelgoods got going there was a series of
yacht clubs along the river, and you could get gigs there.
There were youth clubs, the occasional wedding, but you
couldn't call ita music scene. The Orioles and The
Paramounts were into American rhythm and blues. First of
all there was The Rolling Stones. Everything about them
was exciting, the music they played, the way they looked,
and you knew your parents hated them. In the aftermath of
theStones making their mark, the retail shops in Britain
become full of blues material – Johnny Otis and the like —
you're flicking through the racks of records, loads of them.
You thought they'd go on forever. It just seemed magical.

How serious were you about music as a career? Гуе
never, ever been serious about music as a career. I got into it
completely by accident. When I was about 18, I had quite a
good R'n'B band. I also had a jug-band. We'd go down the
seafront, wait for the pubs to come out and we'd play some
songs. “You Are My Sunshine" or “Irene, Goodnight”. One
time we were playing and three boys came up. We were 18
and they were about 14 – a big gap when you're that age. But
the leader of these boys, he was so intense. This was Lee
Brilleaux. I saw him occasionally over the next two or three
years when Га come back from university. Then I went to
Kathmandu and when I came back, I was living on this
housing estate and thinking, ‘Well, it's own up time, I need
a proper job or something.’ My mother got me a job as a
teacher. Around that time, I’m walking down the street, and
who's this coming the other way, but Lee Brilleaux. He was a

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first guitar hero of the '70s.

Post-Bolan and Bowie,
Britain was a real wasteland, musically.
There were all those faded-denim, post-
prog stadium bands, and the US rock
thing. The Feelgoods cut right through
all that. Hearing Down By The Jetty for
the first time, at the age of 17, was just
what | wanted. | borrowed the LP off a

mate and kept hold of it as long as | could.

Then I went and bought my own.

"| totally related to Wilko's guitar style
and his personality onstage. Between
him and Lee [Brilleaux] they were such a
great team. | don't think l'd ever heard
anyone play like Wilko before. You could
liken his playing to someone like Bo
Diddley, but Wilko is unique, a one-off.

“He is also a great songwriter as well,
especially on all those early tunes from
Down By The Jetty and Malpractice. |
thought they were very special songs.
They kept the style of all those American

Wilko forward

for the great
job, on the sad day
when Patrick Moore
passes away, of
presenting The Sky At
Night,” Julien Temple
announced while
preparing Oil City
Confidential in 2009.
"And he could play
guitar while serenading
the stars.” Indeed, a
Facebook petition was
set up after to get Wilko
the Sky At Night gig.
Wilko's fascination with
astronomy began by
looking at the southern
stars while lying stoned
on his hotel roof on a
1980 Blockheads Aussie
tour. Later, he built what
Temple described as
“a huge phallic dome”
containing a14-inch
telescope on his
Southend roof. Wilko
appeared on Jarvis
Cocker's BBC6 Music
show talking about the
stars. “| could maybe do
The Sky At Night one
time,” he wrote in his
autobiography, Looking
Back At Me. NICK HASTED

r é qs m putting

-— —

blues and R'n'B
tunes, but had
an English
angle and
energy.l only
saw the
Feelgoods
once. That was
at Guildford
— Civic, probably
in 75. My defining memory of that night
was the opening bars... Wilko did a scissor
kick and went straight into 'She Does It
Right’. | remember thinking, ‘Yeah, that's
a fucking great moment!’ And they never
let up, the whole gig was like that. | went
through my Wilko period shortly after,
writing in that style. | took elements of his
playing, that choppiness, into The Jam.

"What was it like finally meeting him?
He's just Wilko, isn't he? Playing with him
a few years ago [Johnson joined Weller
on stage at 2010's Belsonic festival for
“From The Floorboards Up”] was fucking
amazing, areal moment for me.

“Wilko may not be as famous as some
other guitarists, but he’s right up there.
And there are alot of people who'll say
the same. | can hear Wilko in lots of
places. It’s some legacy.” ROBHUGHES

solicitor’s clerk, and he had asharp haircut and sideburns
and was wearing a pinstriped suit. I thought, ‘He don’t half
look mean.’ I looked like a sloppy hippy. I go “Ном” your
band?” He goes, “The guitar player’s left and we’re looking
for anew one.” I’m thinking, ‘I wonder if he’s going to ask me
to join.’ But he didn't. Later that day Sparko comes knocking
and says, “Will you join our band?" I just went, “YES!” It
started there, and for two years, it was justa local band.

We gotaregular gig ata disco on Canvey Island - every
Thursday night. The best one was called the Esplanade
down Southend. It was 10p to get in, and the band gotall the
10ps. I knew Lee was a star. I hada lot of belief in him. The
whole Dr Feelgood thing developed around him. This style
of music we wanted to play, it was not fashionable. So we
were somewhat scorned by local bands, but we carried on
doing our thing. That went on for a few years. Occasionally
we'd spend an afternoon around someone's house learning
a few new numbers, but that was about it. We never
rehearsed, or discussed what we had to look like or what we
were going to do. It all grew naturally out of who we were.

We were all such great friends then and had so many good
times. It did get ugly in the end. There was terrible animosity.
We ended up ina position where they were all drinking a lot,
and I wasn’t drinking at all. Which is not as flippant as it
sounds, ’cos when you're on the road you'll be in your room
and they'll be in the bar. And who are they talking about? Let
me think. I was growing apart from them. I tried very hard to
involve Lee in the songwriting as he was a very witty guy, but
it never happened. So Iwas doing the songs and they never
realised how hard that was. They didn't know about the
beating of your head against the wall the night before trying
to think ofit. If you've had a bit of success, obviously, your
next thing has to be better. It's a bloody strain. If you are the
only one doing it, it worries you. It did make me pretty
intolerable at times. I can't blame it all on them.

Before it all started to come apart, things happened
for you very fast when you first came to London. Yeah.
We found out about this London pub rock thing, which

was aterm I hated, and we were quite keen to get in on

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 19

JOE STEVENS; ANDY WILLSHER; REDFERNS

BRIAN DAVID STEVENS

Magic hands: Wilko at
home with Allan Jones,
February 4,2013

HE DOES IT RIGHT

THE BARD OF
LANVEY ISLAND

ё & ee was
the most
dynamically

Canveyite,” says Julien
Temple, “the one who ran
away to go there. But
Wilko is the poet of
Canvey Island.” Wilko
turned the Thames
estuary into a place of
mystery and wonder in
many of his songs, writing
about the floods, the oil
fires and the eccentric
population. The narrator
of the pulpy "Sneakin'
Suspicion”, for instance,
finds himself at "Midnight
on the river/In the light of
the flames/l'm staring at
the water/And I'm trying to
fita number to a name."
Indeed, Wilko harboured
teenage dreams to bea
writer: "If | don't make it as
a poet by the time I'm 21,
I'll slit my throat,” he said.
At Newcastle University,
he "apprenticed" himself
to poet Tony Harrison. He
also tookup art - great
acid-inspired paintings -
but abandoned it for
rock'n'roll. His lyrics at
least retained some of

his poetic ambitions,

the refinery of Canvey
immortalised as "a tower
of babylon", Wilko and his
future-wife Irene "in the
long grass side by side/
Where the big ships go
gliding by/Skylark singing
in the sun." NICK HASTED

20 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

_it. The first London gig was [2o
a bitofaletdown - filling in
for Ducks Deluxe or someone and
not many people came. But quite soon we were playing The
Kensington on a Saturday, The Lord Nelson on a Thursday,
and occasionally The Hope & Anchor and Dingwalls, and
after that it happened very fast. We'd come from nowhere
and some of these bands had been around for ages, but it

was us things started happening for. It wasn’t a surprise
to me that we became popular quickly.

to do with what happened next, which was basically them
plotting to get me out. Before we went to Rockfield to cut the
fourth LP, Lee and I went to Atlanta to meet Bert de Coteaux
who was going to produce. We had three days together. We
were friends again, hanging out. But as soon as we got to
Rockfield, it was clear they wanted me out. Suddenly, there
was areal animosity. Lee was one of the greatest people I’ve
ever known. But at the end, there was a lot of bad feeling. It
got nastier and nastier. I was completely isolated from the
band. And then one day, I was out.

Did you feel bitter about the way you
were treated? I didn't want to be bitter
about Dr Feelgood because it was the
greatest thingin my life. I was confused. I
didn't know whether to carry on, in fact. But
l'dbeenin the music business for five years
then and it’s a pretty good business to be in.
SoIthought, ‘Well, I’m going to have to try
to carry on.’ But I attracted the worst people
inthe world around me and we carried on
| “= and ruined it. The whole business did no
good to either side. They lost it and I didn't
have it. I’m quite good at what I do, and I was
holding my own. Then Ian Dury invited me to join the
Blockheads. Jan was great - one unusual person. I did really
like him. AlsoIfound him to be the most offensive person
l'veever met. Dear, oh dear, that guy could be so offensive.
A lot of my time was taken up by smoothing over frightful
situations that had arisen when Ian had one too many.

There was no-one else like us. No-one i
sounded like us, no-one looked like us.

Howimportant was the way you
looked? What a band looks like is
alwaysimportant. But again, it wasn't
something we thought about too much.
Lee always dressed like that, very
sharp. Also we found you could go
down York Road market and buy a suit
for 30 bob. It really worked for us,
because people could identify with us.
You didn't have to dress up in a cape or
a pairoftights to see Dr Feelgood. It
wasn'tlike going to see Kiss. We had a
really strong connection to our audience because of the way
we looked and also through the songs.

Atthe time there was alot of stuff about hobgoblins,
rubbish really, that had nothing to do with anything. My first
inspiration was blues, but I realised I couldn't write songs
about freight trains or chain gangs. There weren't any on
Canvey. So tried to keep it allin Essex, to get the landscape,
the oil refineriesinto the songs. Lee brought frustration and
pent-up anger to them. That's what connected us to punk.

If we'd stayed together, we'd have fitted in perfectly with
punk. In fact, we'd have walked all over punk. But by then it
was all blowing upin our faces. People were more interested
in the Pistols and The Clash. They weren't interested in this
band splitting up because of some obscure row. And in the
excitement surrounding punk, we were forgotten.

We'd had a No1 with Stupidity, which was alive album. I
fought the record company over the way it should sound. In
those days - and this is true – if you bought a live album, the
only thing live about itwould probably be the bass drum.
The record company were putting pressure on [producer]
Vic Maile to replace every snare drum beat. I refused to do
any overdubs. This conflict went on almost until it was
eyeball to eyeball. I said, “I’m doing it this way and that's
that.” And so we did. Fortunately it worked out.

Because I had this big success with Stupidity, maybe the
band thought I was taking over. I’m sure that had something

“There was
no-one else
likethe
Feelgoods.
No-one sounded
like us, no-one
looked like us”

| | Did you keep up with the
Feelgoods? Thealbums they did
with Nick Lowe, for instance? No.
Whenever I took interest, I wished I
hadn’t. Everything was crap.

Did you ever make areconciliation
with Lee? No, I didn’t. We metona
couple of occasions, by accident, and
we'd end up looking at our shoes going
"Allright..." When he was dying, my
brother went to see him and he
expressed a wish to see me. So I said,
"They've got to send someone over to
take me. I’m not going to go knock on
his door." Nobody ever did. There were two occasions when
the band nearly got back together in the year after the split
that didn't work out. One of them very nearly did. I was up in
town and a mate of mine came in and said “Guess who Гуе
been talking to?” I said, “Is it Lee Brilleaux?” He said, “I had
along talk with him and he'd like you back in the band. He
really, really would." I said “Would he?" ’cos I was thinking
the same thing. A few months later, this guy said, “I’ve gone
so far as to make an arrangement for you to meet in The Ship
in Wardour St, tomorrow afternoon." Then I met this girl,
and spent 48 hours with her. So I never meet Lee and never
really spoke to him again. That’s just the way things happen.

Whatare your plans for the next few months? We’re
playing some dates in France that were scheduled before I
was diagnosed and we’re doing an album. Because of my
current circumstances, it's going to be a quick one. No time
for all that fiddling about with them knobs. We'll just bloody
record it. When we come back from France, we'll be doing
the UK farewell tour, which, obviously I hope Pll be fit
enough to do. I’m not going onstage ill. don't want people to
see me like that. But I’ve got every reason to hope lll be fit

to do those dates. If Ican, it would be a consummation
devoutly to be wished. I'll be happy then. ©

Wilko Johnson tours the UK in March. Thanks go to Joe Uchill

David Bowie

The Next Day

The New Album
11.03.13

PHOOPHOREOLENT

изинин

4
1011000117111

“Shit seems toget weird 4< ,
everyfew years. That's when .

I write..." Matthew Houckin ң

front of Queensboro Bridge,

New York, 2013 "

22 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013 | X

Matthew Houck's quietly
brilliant career fronting
PHOSPHORESCENT has taken
him from Alabama to Brooklyn
and encompassed cosmic
outlaw country, Crazy Horse
jams, electronic washes and an
ambition to match Astral Weeks.
Now, after a ruined relationship,
arestorative trip to Mexico

and a stint in Hendrix’s old
studio, he might just have

made his masterpiece...

Story: Allan Jones

Photos: Pieter M. Van Hattem

life in New York started to unravel, Matthew

Houck, still vaguely traumatised by nearly
two years touring behind Phosphorescent’s
breakthrough album, Here’s To Taking It Easy,
did what so many before him have done, finding
themselves standing in the rubble of love gone
wrong. He took flight, fled the sour scene of
unbidden heartache.

“Tt was a Sunday, about three in the morning.

I was justa hot mess,” he says. "Td been thinking

for a couple of days that I might need to actually
leave town. I was in a relationship that was clearly

at its end. That's never an easy time. Anyway, I felt

a need to remove myself from my life, the scene I was
in. Take a deep breath, you know, and just go. I went
online and there was a flight from New York to
Mexico, leaving in three hours. I took it.”

He fetched up in Tulum, 80 miles south of Cancün
onthe east coast ofthe Yucatán Peninsula, a small
resort popular with hippies, backpackers and the
occasional celebrity, famous for its Mayan ruins
and the Casa Magna, the former holiday home of
Columbian drug baron, Pablo Escobar. This was
where Houck started to write the songs that form the
core ofthe new Phosphorescent album, Muchacho.

“I stayedin a cabaña on the beach,” he recalls.
“There was norunning water and the power went off
at 8pm. At night you had to work or whatever by
candlelight until the electricity came on again in the
morning. There were some hippies there and a lot of
people who'd just checked out of their lives, like me.
Iwasn'treally talking to anyone, to be honest. I was
looking for solitude. Ineeded to be on my own to do
the work that needed to be done.

“Tm not normally good at routines," he goes on.
“Im not what you'd called a disciplined songwriter.
Icanstarta song really easy. I mean, give mea
couple of minutes with an instrument and I can
probably have a pretty good tune worked up real
quick. But I often tend to leave them at that point,
unfinished. WhenI wasin Mexico, for the first time
I forced myself to write, to sit there and actually
finish songs and that's what l'd do. Га write that
second or third verse, wrap up that chorus.

“The only music l'd written since coming off tour
was weird ambient pieces, nothing like the last

W HEN AT THE BEGINNING OF LAST year his

album atall, and that’s a direction I thought Td go 77|

APRIL 2013.) UNCUT | 23

PIETER M VAN HATTEM; GETTY IMAGES

PHOSPHORESCENT

_inonthenewrecord, which was beginning to feel
so different I actually thought of maybe putting
Phosphorescent on hold and releasing the record under

another name. But in Mexico, I started writing on top of those

ambient pieces, and the songs started coming. The first one
that came as a complete song was ‘Muchacho’s Tune’, and
thatwas when everything clicked for me. Everything came

from thatone song, the first song. The entire album followed.

Allthese ideas that were just floating around, just out of
reach, started actually to become finished songs. АП of a

sudden, I had nine of them."

And they were presumably inspired by recent turmoil?

“Yes, I think so,” he says. “The songs are always inspired by

the circumstances I find myselfin at any given time. It's like
the catalyst for me sitting down and hammering out songs
has pretty much always been when there’s some kind of
turmoil in my life. It’s maybe a coping mechanism,
something I turn to for comfort at times when shit gets
weird and shit seems to get weird every few years, you

know? That's whenI write."

Sothis wasan album born from crisis?
"Aren't they all?" he says, laughing again.

something of the look of a desert ascetic, a fuzzy

y OU HAVE SEEN PICTURES OF HIMin which he has

hippy mystic prone to peyote visions, a great deal
of staring into diminishing space and conversations
with cooing seraphim. Today, though, he just
looks fucked. *Band practice," he says by way of
explanation. *Onething led to another and

didn'tstop there."

ItsaSunday afternoon towards the end of
January. New York's light is already paling.
Houck meets Uncut at Electric Lady, the studio
built by Jimi Hendrix at 52 West 8th Street, in
Greenwich Village, where Houck came to mix
three of the tracks for Muchacho. There are
portraits of Jimi on the walls ofthe stairwell
leading down from a somewhat scruffy ground
floor reception area, accessed directly from the
street through a door you have to use a
shoulder to open, Jimi in his braided military
tunic, a stoned hussar. There are psychedelic

I CALL THEM WHEN |
A BIT LIKE NEIL YOUN

éé hosphorescent
has never been
a band. | mean,

| have a great group of
musicians | tour with and
they're amazing players,
phenomenal. But except
when we're onthe road,
we don't operate like a
group. When | need
them, | give them a call.
It’s maybe like Neil
Young and Crazy Horse,
to that extent. The way
this record worked, none
of it was done live. | did
the basic tracks and had
24 hours when they'd
come inand they played
to the tracks | had ready,
as they were needed.

24 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

|
|

MATTHEW HOUCK

HEM,

FED T
AND CRAZY HORSE...

to bein control. There’s
never any question about
who makes the final
decisions. | enjoy losing
myself іп the studio. | сап
stay in there for days on
my own. To the extent it
gets things done, | don’t
mind the solitude. l'm not
sure if it's healthy, as you
can get so immersed.
The separation between
engaging the worldona
sane level and making art
of any kind can be pretty
profound, which is weird,
as any artis anattempt at
communication. | think if

_ [knew a different way of

making records, I'd
probably try it.”

murals by Lance Jost on the walls of the long corridor that
leads to the studio where Hendrix recorded and once held
court. The room we are standing in feels spacious, though it's
notlarge. Various instruments are scattered, although not
untidily, around its curved perimeter. The atmosphere here is
lulling. Hush prevails.

There's another studio upstairs, where someone is
currently recording, no-one's sure who. Their session means
Houck can't show me as planned the vintage desk he used to
mix thetracks he brought here and no doubt explain its many
intricacies. I try manfully to hide my disappointment and
perk up noticeably when a drink is suggested.

We walk some distance to the East Village, across Broadway
and Lafayette Street and down Great Jones Street, to the
Bowery Hotel, into whose murky opulence we enter rather
expecting to be turned away. The lobby and lounge through
which we walk to the bar are low-ceilinged, sturdy beams

above us, wood-panelling on the walls, thick
ornamental carpets and rugs throughout. In bygone
times, you can imagine it as a regular haunt for
bootleggers, the occasional gangster and people
otherwise perched unsteadily on the legal rim of things,
their money made from not always legitimate activities.
Drinks are duly ordered and Houck is soon being
served Johnnie Walker Black, on the rocks, ina glass big
enough to hold a fair amount of the bottle the whiskey
was poured from. The beer Matthew has ordered as a
chaser seems highly irrelevant. A woman sitting nearby
with hair that looks like the stuffing pouring out ofa toy
lion torn open bya laughing cat is talking in a
voice that sounds like a chainsaw howling
through teak, shrill chums providing a
caterwauling chorus. I’m relieved when the
shrieking coven ups and leaves in a swirl of
scarves, drapes and wraps, leaving behind
them a trail of perfume that makes me cough
likea Tommy ina Flanders trench, choking on
mustard gas.

Atleast now, thankfully, I can hear Houck,
whose voice is for the most part pitched not
much higher than a whisper. He’s telling me, I
can now be sure, about growing upin a place
called Toney, in northwestern Alabama.

"It had a population of 600 people,” he says.
"It was real small. It's not even really a place.
It’s just a piece of land. There's no town as such. I don’t know
how growing up there affected me or shaped my personality. I
had nothing to compare it to. Га never been anywhere else.
It’s where I lived. As farasIknew, it was no different to
anyplace else. I didn’t grow up feeling especially isolated,
although I guess that’s what we were. I don't know if Td be
any differentifIwas from somewhere else."

When he mentions that his grandfather was a preacher,

Tm just about to pursue a connection to songs on early
Phosphorescent albums - I’m thinking of the eerie rapture

of something like “My Dove, My Lamb" or the congregational
sing-along of “Last Of The Hand-Me-Downs”, the Pentecostal
horns that pepper his records – when he heads me off, with
another laugh.

"This wasn'tlike something out of Flannery O'Connor or
There Will Be Blood,” he says. “There were no rattlesnakes
or speaking in tongues. It was definitely not a Southern
revivalist church thing atall. There was none of that hysteria.
Itwas much more straitlaced, pious. Very respectful and the
hymns were beautiful. That's the connection, the hymnal
quality. That's certainly a part ofa lot of my music. I’ve always
loved that hymn-like stuff."

By theageofeight, he'd moved with his family to the larger
Alabama city of Huntsville, in the Tennessee River Valley.
Music became a central focus of his teenage life, the usual
stuffon the radio that anyone his age would have listened
to, mostly hard rock and mainstream country, although he

would developa taste for the
harder outlaw country of Willie
Nelson and Waylon Jennings.
Nirvana were an early
inspiration and you can
distantly hear echoes of their
signature thrum on atrack like
“You” from Hipolit, the self-
released album Houck put out
under the name Fillup Shack in
2000, although perhaps more
typical of his music at the time
is asong like “Down Roads",
which is reminiscent of Village-
era Bob Dylan and sounds like it
was recorded on someone's
back porch.

He wasliving by thenin
Athens, GA. Locallabel Warm
putouta second album, A
Hundred Times Or More. Its
often rickety country-folk
recalled Will Oldham, whose
influence prevailed on 2005's
Aw Come Aw Wry, released by
the Ohio-based Misra label,
which also on stand-out tracks
like “Joe Tex, These Taming
Blues” introduced Stax horns to
the mix and further embraced
elements of gospel and
Southern soul. When Misra label manager Phil Waldorf left to
launch Dead Oceans in 2007, Houck was one of his first
signings. “I’ve known Matthew for nearly a decade,” Waldorf
tells Uncut. “It was a relationship I wanted to continue when
we formed Dead Oceans. He’s making important, timeless
albums, the kind of records that fans of great songwriters
cherish forever. That's why we want to be involved with
someone like him.”

o mam

astonishing Pride, on which he played everything

himself, as well as producing and mixing the thing. It
was alsothe third album Houck put out as Phosphorescent,
aname that sounds not lightly chosen. "Itwasn't," he says.
“I decided on the name specifically because of the idea of
something being able to burn and produce light without
combusting itself, without burning itself out and the fact that
it self-perpetuates and never goes out."

On Pride, Houck found more clearly than ever before his
own artistic voice — or voices, at those moments where his
multi-tracked vocals create a truly cosmic soundscape on
psychedelic hymns likethe nine-minute *My Dove, My
Lamb" and theravishing *Cocaine Lights". There are
miasmic sonic expeditions on Pride, as out there at times as
Tim Buckley's Starsailor. His fanbase was by now as devoted
as mujahideen. What a shock to them Houck’s next record
must’ve been. 2009’s To Willie was an album of Willie Nelson
covers, inspired by To Lefty From Willie, Nelson’s 1977 tribute
to Lefty Frizzell. For the album, he enlisted members of
acrack bar band called Virgin Forest, who in various
permutations have been with him since, Crazy Horse to his
Neil Young, The Band to his Dylan. To Willie was a fabulous
country rock album and less the career digression it seemed
to some to be. Its follow-up was 2010’s swaggering Here's To
Taking It Easy, an album that evoked memories of ’70s Stones
and Dylan, with echoes too of Neil Young on the smouldering
guitar epic “Los Angeles”, which sounded like something
that could have been recorded for On The Beach or Zuma.
Here’s To Taking It Easy gave brilliant voice to Houck’s
growing authority as a songwriter, arranger, producer
andasinger with the vulnerable bravado of vintage

H OUCK'S DEBUT FOR DEAD OCEANS was 2007's

BUYERS GUIDE TU MATTHEW HOUCK

HIPOLIT

SELF-RELEASED, 2000

Houck was
eds still going

| under the

name Fillup
Shack when he self-
released this low-key
set of delicate but fairly
conventional folk tunes.

Highlight is the country
lament "Down Roads".

A HUNDRED TIMES
OR MORE
WARM, 2003
St Still a
ў. vulnerable

~~ affair, Houck
also wields
that lonesome crack in
his voice a little more
brazenly on his first LP
as Phosphorescent.
Hints of the future can
be heard ontunes like
the rambling, harmonic

drone, "Last Of The
Hand-Me-Downs".

AW COME AW WRY

MISRA, 2005
, Here Houck
expands

к At ; his range

considerably,

adding rock rhythms as
well as pedal steel to the
mix on songs like the
febrile "Joe Tex, These
Taming Blues" and the
typically repentant
"South (Of America)”.

PRIDE

DEAD OCEANS, 2007

This stunning

cocoon of an

album fuses
- soul, country,
folk and hymns with
cosmic spirituals and
ethereal soundscapes,
epitomised by the
incredible ode to awe
and trepidation,

"Wolves".

TO WILLIE

DEAD OCEANS,2009
Anew
direction,
as Houck
hooks up

with a band to revisit the
Willie Nelson songbook,
reinterpreting gems like
“Too Sick To Pray” and

"| Gotta Get Drunk"
with a swagger rarely
seen to date.

HERE'S TO TAKING IT EASY
DEAD OCEANS, 2010

Houck stuck

with the band

from To Willie
T NER and cut loose
on this confident affair,
utilising his finest
arrangements to
explore golden age
'70s country rock
rhythms on swirling
epics like the
outstanding "The
Mermaid Parade" and
epic "Los Angeles".

MUCHACHO

DEAD OC

EANS, 2013

More of

the above,
although with
synthesisers
and drum machines
adding to the rich
palette this time around.
Houck wrote much

of the album in Mexico
after fleeing a domestic
crisis, and the Mariachi
horns give a further
melancholy twist to his
usual forlorn and
apologetic tales of
feckless masculinity.

PETER WATTS

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 25

FOCUSING PHOSPHORESCENT

‘TWAS SHIVERING.
IT WAS SO INTENSE...

Kurt Vile, Drive-By Truckers and Hold
Steady producer JOHN AGNELLO on
working with Matthew Houck

éé atthew had
M spent
months
working on his record,
recording most of it
himself. He had a bunch
of awesome tracks, but
he needed someone to
help him put everything
together. He felt with a
lot of the tracks he had,
there was too much stuff
going on at the same
time, so it was really
about sorting out what
the focus of the LP was...
"The first song we
mixed was 'Muchacho's
Tune’. | had a day left
over from a project | was
working on and he came
in and we just mixed for
one day. That wastwo or
three weeks before
we got into the whole

record. That was the first
full song | heard from the

album. And | felt that
was really lyrical - ‘I fix
myself up to come and
be with you’ is the big
delivery line, and for
me that tightens up the
whole lyric. ‘Like the
waves upon the sand,
like the shepherd to the
lamb... уе been fucked
up and I've been a fool.’
Nothing is throwaway,
there’s such emotion
in what he writes.
‘Muchacho’s Tune’ is
one of my favourites, as
is ‘A Charm/A Blade’ and
‘Song For Zula’, the last
one he finished.
“I’dlook at the lyrics as
| was mixing them. As |
was going through the
lyrics for ‘Zula’, | was

Se ee

shivering, it was so
intense. | totally wanted
to know what the songs
were about.
“Thematically, | think
the record is all about
loss and starting again,
and it’s alot about
relationships, so when
you hear him sing these
lyrics with that emotion
he sings with, his voice
cracking, his extra ad
libs, it’s so great. He's
such a great singer. We
hada greattime. You
meet someone and you
realise immediately
they're just vital people,
Kurt Vile is like that. So
is Matthew. It's a real
pleasure working with
guys like him and Kurt,
guys who are doing such
wonderful music."

. ^. Gram Parsons. Ifit wasn’t exactly Houck's Born To Run,
it brought him even more lavish praise than Pride and
his healthiest sales to date. He toured the arse off the album
over the following two years. What kind of shape was hein
when the touring was over?

“Not the best,” he says, not laughing now. “Whatever your
best intentions, you fall into certain behavioural traps. That's
just the way it goes. It's really not a lifestyle I'd particularly
endorse or recommend. It's not a healthy way of living and
it does have repercussions, to say the least, on your well-
being and the well-being of people around you. The kind
of routine you get locked into breeds a mental laziness 1
don'tlike. You get to a point where you just have to numb
your mind. You have to shut down your mind, learn to
function at a lower frequency, at least until showtime,
which is the highlight of your day, or should be. I’m not
complaining. I knew what I was signing up for, but it can
be very confining. You're just getting through the days,
the weeks, the months. It's a very frustrating way to live.
Atthe end ofall that touring behind Here's To Taking It
Easy, thelastthing I wanted to do was just come back
and crank out another record like that. Iwasn't real sure
what I was going to do next, but I certainly wasn't
expecting it to be anything like the record I ended up

“The album
was born out of
joy, failings and
the dumb shit
Гуе done”

Weeks. Scott Stapleton and Ricky Ray Jackson from his
touring band provide spectacular piano and pedal steel
parts and Bobby Hawk’s fiddle is often sensationally
deployed. Houck’s voice soars, rising on thermal drafts.
The lyrics typically are hallucinatory, visionary, by turns
specific and oblique, like extracts from half-remembered
dreams, endlessly revealing. Even as they appear to be
giving nothing away, they tell you somehow everything.
Houck baulks, though, visibly bristles, in fact, at the
thought they will be taken as wholly autobiographical.

“They are first and foremost songs," he says. "There's a craft
to songwriting and I think I’ve worked at it hard and long
enough to be pretty good at it on occasions. You're not just
offering up the details of your life and what's happening in it,
like the pages ofa diary or something. I mean, I haven't just
made a Joni Mitchell record."

To what extent, though, do your songs feed offthe specific
traumas of your own life? “I’m always hesitant about going
too deeply into this,” he says, a little uncomfortably. “Yes,
there are specific events that were the catalyst for this record.
But that doesn't mean those events are the lifeblood of the
songs. The songs and music exist independently of the things
that may have given life to them. And while a certain amount
of trauma was the catalyst for the album, trauma isn't the
record's overarching theme. It was equally born out of
ecstatic joy, my own failings and just the dumb shit I’ve done.

"There's also a healthy dose of fiction in there,” he
continues. “That shouldn't be overlooked. I was reading
anold interview with Warren Zevon and he made the point
that songwriters are judged differently to other artists,
filmmakers and novelists, for instance. It's like there's a
different set of critical criteria. Songwriters are scrutinised in
a different way. As a songwriter you end up being totally
identified with your songs and what they say. You're almost
expected to write only about the things that happen to you,
asifthatwill somehow make the songs somehow more
‘true’. It’s like everything you write has to be confessional,
based on the specifics of your life. I've always wanted, and
wantstill, to enjoy greater freedom as a writer than that.

“I thinkit was [American poet] Wallace Stevens who said
something like the deeper you go into the personal, somehow
the more universal all ofa sudden something will become.
The other argumentis, open something up vaguely and that’s
where the universality is. I don’t know which is most true.
When I'm being specific in a song, I’m hyper-aware of what
I’m doing it and it scares me. I don’t like to do that. But
sometimes you have to. There’s no other way. But then you
end up witha reputation for brooding and introversion or
whatever and that’s who people start to think you are. They

can’t separate you from the songs.

“Iwas talking to someone about ‘A New Anhedonia’,
from the new record," he says. “And I explained
that ‘anhedonia’ means the lack of being able to
experience pleasure in things that should be
pleasurable, losing the ability to take pleasure in
something that was innately pleasurable or had been
previously. All ofa sudden things you would normally
lean on hard to get out ofa funk, all ofasudden those
things disappear. The song asks whatis there left when
all these things fall away? What have you got? What
are you left with? Sometimes it’s not much.

making. I didn’t expect this record to come out the way it
has atall. I really didn’t see it coming."

describes it, of reckoning and redemption, about

walking out of darkness into light. For a record that took
eventual shape from bleak beginnings, Muchacho sounds
often euphoric, giddily resplendent. Musically, it's the most
expansive album Houck's yet made. The cunnilingual swirl
of Mariachi horns melts into hazy clouds of synthesisers,
strings cascade, at least once making you think of Astral

д“ NOW IT'S HERE, AN ALBUM, as Matthew Houck

26 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

MATTHEW HOUCK

“And he said, ‘But on the cover of the album [a rather
racy shotof Houckin what looks like a hotel room with a
couple of scantily clad beauties on the bed behind him] you're
laughing! ThatIlooked happy in the picture was confusing to
him. But Iam usually happy. I’m nota wreck of humanity. I
could see how you could think that if you had only some of the
songs to go on, but they're just part ofthe picture. He couldn't
understand the song came from a place Iwasin when I wrote
it,” Houck goes on. “But I came back, you know?" ©

Muchacho is out on Dead Oceans on March 18

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ristine

THE HOUSE OF LOVE

This woozy ode to teenage heartbreak, inspired by the Velvets
and Roxy, made Guy Chadwick and his young gunslingers
late-'80s indie saviours. "I knew it was something special...”

HEHOUSE OF LOVE were
astrange union between
thirtysomething Guy
Chadwick - a seen-it-all
songwriter who'd already
spent a decade in failed
groups - and the youthful
vigour of his accomplices, particularly guitarist
Terry Bickers. Signing to Alan McGee's Creation
labelin 1987 atthe urging of McGee's then-wife,
the band released a pair of singles – “Shine
On" and *Real Animal" - before unveiling
"Christine". With its hypnotic drones, layers of
guitar reverb and blissful vocal harmonies — and
influences ranging from The Velvet Underground
to Roxy Music and The Beach Boys - “Christine”
helped establish The House Of Love as one of
the defining guitar bands ofthe late 1980s. But
within a couple of years, the band lost their
momentum. There was an overcooked second
album - the product of a deal brokered with
Fontana by McGee. Meanwhile, the band's drug
intake got out of hand and, in 1989, Bickers quit
amid rumours of nervous breakdowns or a
suicide attempt. The band struggled on for a
few more albums, before eventually splitting
upin 1993. In 2003, The House Of Love reunited,
with Bickers reinstated in the lineup. Today,
"Christine" is very much a staple of the band's
live set. “It was the first proper, focused pop song
Га written," explains Guy Chadwick. “As soon as
Га finished it, I knew it was something special."
JOHN LEWIS

GUY CHADWICK: I had spent most ofthe '80s
in various failed bands. The songs were good, but
I didn’t really like the sound we were making. I
wanted to make music inspired by the '60s - The
Velvet Underground, The Doors, The Beatles —
and it didn't help that I hated music in the mid-

28 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

'8os! There was one band
called Reverb & Barbed
which later turned into The
Kingdoms, who ended up
signing atwo-single deal
with RCA. After one single
that didn't do anything, we
were dropped. It was then
that I decided I had to really
work out what I wanted to do.
TERRY BICKERS: I was
influenced by post-punk:
John McGeoch in Magazine,
Wire, Television, Echo And
The Bunnymen, Siouxsie.
And I was a big Police fan –
Iloved Andy Summers' use
ofthe volume pedal!
CHADWICK: used to
record my demos ina flatin
Finchley Road, near West
Hampstead tube. It belonged
to a friend with whom I was
ina group. We stopped
working together but he
kindly let me use his stuff:
bass guitar, drum machine,
keyboards, four-track. I spent
ages recording these quite
detailed demos of several

songs — including “Christine” — in that period
between The Kingdoms and The House Of Love.
Ialsofelt the need to work with new musicians,
soladvertised in the Melody Maker...
BICKERS: I answered Guy's advert and met
him at his flatin Allingham Street, Islington,
where he played me a cassette of this demo
he'd been working on. “Christine” was almost
allin place, and had a strong mood and a real
atmosphere. Guy had the buzz-saw guitar riff,

KEY PLAYERS

à Guy Chadwick
Songwriter,
vocals, guitar

«Ф Ban.

Terry Bickers
^E Guitar, backing
~~ vocals

Û Chris
$ Groothuizen
» Bass

Pete Evans
Drums

Î Pat Collier

7 Engineer, mixing

Peter
Scammell
Video director

eighth-note bassline, and
adrum machine. There
was also a guitar line,
a kind of solo, which
needed development.
CHRIS GROOTHUIZEN:
Iwaslivingin the squat
next door to Terry'sin
Camberwell, and heard
him playing the demo to
"Christine" at a party. I
thought it was great and
started a conversation with
him. We were both into
similar stuff: Bunnymen,
Banshees, Cure, early REM.

The demo was more atmospheric and synth-
based than what we ended up with, but still very
good. When we started rehearsing I was still
struggling to learn the bass - I remember Terry
having to gesture me at the end of each eight-bar
phrase, reminding me to change pattern!

PETE EVANS: I was in Reverb & Barbed with
Guy, in about 1983, but keptin touch with him
while he was in The Kingdoms. I remember him

| working very hard on those demos, and we all

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used them as a template. If my drums sound
very metallic and hypnotic, it's because I’m
trying to copy the drum machine!

BICKERS: Guy was about 10 years older
than me, and introduced me to The Velvet
Underground. That fed into where we were at
the time, even our look - the polo neck jumpers
and black jeans and so on.

EVANS: We useda lot of hypnotic, Velvets-style
repetition. Early versions
of "Christine" were about
eight minutes long! Ithink
itwas Alan McGee who
encouraged us to edit.

"Iheyd drive you
mad layering

sound” came from a solid-state pedal, the
Boss Chorus Ensemble.

CHADWICK: My guitar looked similar to
Terry's, but it was an Epiphone. I played it
through a great big Space Echo Chorus unit, as
big as a shoebox. We'd divide the guitar parts
between us, but I don’t think we were ever
precious. Terry was usually more inspired and
came up with more interesting sounds.

BICKERS: The Beach
Boys-style backing vocals
were there from the very
start, from the earliest
rehearsals. We got very

BICKERS: I was playing . ° perfectionist when we
ared CMI semi-acoustic, guitars, but It made got to the studio.
which looked likea А 95 PAT COLLIER: We
Gretsch. Still play it now! sense in the end. s recorded it at my studio,
Iplayedit through a Greenhouse, near Old
Fender Dual Showman in | 1 | [ [ | | | | R Streetin London. Itwas
a cabinet I built with my the main studio where

stepfather. There were

lots of pedals; an MXR Distortion Plus, an MXR
compressor and an Ibanez DM digital delay rack
unit which had loads of cigarette burns on the
top. That distinctive, wobbly *House Of Love

Alan brought the Creation
bands. I worked with the Mary Chain, the
Primals, Swervedriver, all that lot.

EVANS: With “Christine” I played to a click
track but then stopped when it came to the guitar

Acrowded House:
(I-r) Chris Groothuizen,
AndreaHeukamp, Terry

Bickers (front), Pete
Evans, Guy Chadwick

break that comes in about halfway through.
Then it gets a bit freer. We did that a lot.

COLLIER: They were all exceptionally good
musicians. With “Christine”, like most of their
songs, they started by all playing live through the
song. We’d isolate the bass and drums, which got
locked down pretty quickly. Then we’d spend
bloody ages as Guy and Terry fiddled around
playing and re-playing and layering the guitars.
They’d get radically different guitar sounds and
use adjectives — “make it wobbly”, “use that jazz
sound" - that only they'd understand. They have
the most back-to-front way of working - they'll
often startin the middle ofthe song and work
backwards, they'll pile up layers of guitars and
vocals and use up all 24 tracks on tape, and they'd
drive you mad. But it all made sense in the end.

CHADWICK: It took a long time to mix
"Christine". The fundamental thing is that it has
aconstant, two-note guitar riff, set against a
constantly moving bass riff. You had to be able to
hearthat. Alan McGee did a mix and described it
as "chainsaw hoovermatic" - he drenched it in
reverb and it sounded rubbish. Then we tried it,
then someone else tried it. Eventually one of
Pat's engineers, Iain O'Higgins, got it right.

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 29

TIM PATON

P a

Guy Chadwick: “We'd divide
the guitar parts betweenus:
Terry usually came up with
more interesting sounds”

. GROOTHUIZEN: Alan my favourite linein it, is about
would only pay for | Д |; | F | | t how difficult things are when
another mix if we did itin some you'rea struggling artist.
graveyard slot. So this poor guy * Written by Guy Chadwick That'sa killer!
lain diditfromaboutmidnight * Producedby GROOTHUIZEN: Andrea's
The House Of Love

until five in the morning. I
remember lain falling asleep
on the mixing desk, his hand
stretched out on a fader...
COLLIER: I came in that
morning and they all looked
like zombies. I played it and
said, 'That's perfect.’ They

* Engineered by Pat Collier
* Mixed by Pat Collier
and lain O'Higgins
* Recordedat Greenhouse
Studios, Old Street, London
* Released April 1988
e Did not chart

backing vocals were a key
component to the way Guy
wrote and structured his
songs. It changed when she
left, musically and personally.
EVANS: It was a shame
Andrea left. She was homesick
for Germany, and I think she

decided to add more vocals.
They were obsessed with
backing vocals! Andrea
[Heukamp] was particularly good on the vocals.
CHADWICK: The riff and chord progression, if
I’m honest, come from Roxy Music’s “Over You” —
Iremember driving one day and hearing itin my
head. I think the name “Christine” was the first
word that came into my head when I started
singing along. The probable inspiration was a girl
called Christine Га been out with as a teenager –
the first person who broke my heart. She'd had a
kid notlong after we split up, with someone else,
so that probably inspired “апа the baby cries".
BICKERS: I love the line: “Still walking in me/
Still talking in me". It suggests optimism, the idea
of something being kept alive. It’s as much about
music as anything.
CHADWICK: A lot of my songs are about how
I feel about music. I think that's true of lots of
songwriters. “The whole world drags us down”,

wanted to play bass, not guitar.

There was always tension – at

the first rehearsal I remember
seeing her outside, crying. Everyone in the band
was friendly, but we were never really friends.

GROOTHUIZEN: When Andrea left it
definitely became more... blokeish. A bit wilder.

CHADWICK: Were drugs involved? Notin
the studio, not while we were on Creation. The
drugs came in when we started touring, it was not
healthy. I find it a little bit annoying that Alan
McGee rather romanticises that side of things.

BICKERS: The drink and drugs got worse when
we'd signed to a major label, and were expected
to deliver singles to order. It's the hackneyed story
of bands, they start to have some success and it
all goes pear-shaped.

CHADWICK: “Christine”, like the entire first
album, wasincredibly cheap to make. Compare it
to the second album - where we spent six very
expensive weeks at Abbey Road on sessions that

were dumped, as well as
£130,0000n sessions with
Stephen Hague that were never
used. Shocking! The first
album cost peanuts: around
£250 or £300 a day for five days
recording and four days
mixing. Sothe whole LP cost
lessthan three grand. The
video for “Christine” cost
nothing – it was a favour from
an old friend, Peter Scammell.
PETER SCAMMELL: Га just
setupa video company called
State, with Anton Corbijn. Guy
was an old mate and he came
to visit mein this Dean Street
office and played me a tape of
“Christine”, which I loved. The
videos Га been working on, for
Erasure, Lenny Kravitz, Bryan
Ferry, The Banshees and The
Creatures, used lots of fast
cutting. I wanted to do the
opposite — long, lingering,
photographic images.
CHADWICK: | loved the
video! I had this idea we could
be in Val Doonican jumpers,
with acoustic guitars on stools.
SCAMMELL: 1 diditasa
favour. I only had six rolls of 8mm film, and we
shotitin a photographic studio in Covent Garden
used by Guy's girlfriend — now wife – Suzie
Gibbons, who also did their sleeves. I didn't want
to do an orthodox shoot with a drumkit. I thought
posing the band with acoustics made them look
more fragile, a contrast to this mash of distorted
guitars. I possibly overdid the out-of-focus thing!
I wanted it to take off when the guitar break kicks
in, so we filmed a couple kissing. I think that was
Pete and his girlfriend. We turned the cameras
sidewise and played it in slow motion, it looked
more sexually suggestive and voyeuristic.
GROOTHUIZEN: We were asked to perform
on the South Bank Show awards. That was a real
accolade, usually meant for bands at the pinnacle
oftheir career, not bands who'd just started!
EVANS: I remember having my make-up done
nextto Melvyn Bragg! The afternoon rehearsal
went really well. Unfortunately, for the evening
performance, in front of the audience, the roadie
forgot to plug in Terry's guitar, so it sounded
terrible, like a damp squib. Fortunately, they'd
recorded our earlier version, and broadcast that.
GROOTHUIZEN: | think the later music we
did, on Fontana, doesn’t really stand up as well,
but “Christine” sounds tremendous to this day,
especially considering the budget.
CHADWICK: “Christine” was never a hit but it
still has a huge resonance. We always play it live
—if we didn't, the crowd would bloody kill us! ©

The House Of Love release their new LP, She Paints
Words In Red, through Cherry Red on March 25

1984 Guy Chadwick
splits up The Kingdoms

Greenhouse Studios.
Andrea Heukamp

оту рте
October 1987

copies of the band's
first demos

1986 Chadwick places

advert in Melody Compilation of early

Chadwick starts Maker, forms The May 1987 House Of singles and B-sides, aka leaves the band‏ 1985 ا
ii | 4 | A | ИШ torecordaseries of House Of Love Love release debut ‘The German Album’, April1988 “Christine”‏ |
Lee demos, including January 1987 The single “Shine On" released on Creation/ released‏

“Christine”, “Destroy group sign to Creation July 1987 Release Rough Trade June 1988 The House

The Heart” and
me "Real Animal”

Of Love album is

released

November 1987
Record "Christine" in

second single "Real
Animal"

after "bombarding"
Alan McGee with

ЗО | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

Includes the original broadcast concert remastered.
The dress rehearsal remixed and remastered.
5 songs recorded in a behind-closed-doors session.

Brand new full colour 24 page booklet with rare photos
and liner notes.

amazon.co.uk

Free Super Saver Delivery and Unlimited One-Day Delivery with Amazon Prime are available.
Terms and conditions apply. See Amazon.co.uk for details.

LEGACY legacyrecordings.co.uk

SONY MUSIC

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JAMIE BLACKLEY

Why has hecome back?
because he has plenty to say,
and new ways of saying It.
Because he couldn't keep
silent any longer...

Religious dissidents and juvenile delinquents, Greenwich Village
and Potsdamer Platz, doomed soldiers and vacuous celebrities...
To mark the auspicious arrival of DAVID BOWITE's 24th album,
David Cavanagh files the epic, definitive review of The Next Day.
Plus: we talk to Bowie's key collaborators this time round,

and discover he's been surprisingly busy since 2003.

Photo: © Masayoshi Sukita

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 33

JIMMY KING; GETTY IMAGES

DAVID BOWIE

HIS IS HOW IT ENDED. The crowd booed and catcalled.
Bowie reeled away in pain. When he returned to the
microphone, his voice had a bitter rasp. “Yeah, let’s do that
again all fuckin’ night! Where are you, creep? Yeah, I guess
it’s easier to get lost in the crowd, you bastard.” Reports of
the incident swept the internet: a lollipop had been thrown
by a fan in an audience in Oslo, hitting Bowie straight in the
eye. It rivalled the Lord's Prayer at Wembley as the most
bizarre event of his performing life. A week later, in Prague,
Bowie complained of chest pains. A trapped nerve in his
shoulder, they said, but within 48 hours he suffered a heart attack at
a festival in Germany. It was June 25, 2004. The rest of the tour was
cancelled as Bowie underwent emergency surgery on a blocked
artery. After the operation came the shutdown, the withdrawal. No
albums, no tours, merely rumours of ill health and retirement. Five
years became six, and eight became nine, and the world accepted
that Bowie's remarkable career in music was over.

WHO'S WHO

This is howit starts. The crowd are baying for blood. Aman
is chased through the streets and dragged to a river on the
back ofa cart. Dead bodies pile up on the shore. There's a
*purple-headed priest” whom everyone is terrified of. Are
we listening to the fate of one of the Tudor heretics? Ora
dissident of the Catholic Church in John Wycliffe’s time?
Perhaps the action takes place in an even earlier century,
like the 11th, where the priests, omnipotent and supposedly
omniscient, “can’t get enough of that Domesday song”.
Bowie comes to a climactic line and lets fly with a roar that
almost strips the skin from his mouth: “They know God
exists FOR THE DEVIL TOLD THEM SO!”

Drums pound. Guitars slash. Bowie is tortured and left to
writhe in a “hollow tree”. Death is approaching, but when?
Barely conscious, he watches the shadows lengthen as the
day dawns and dims. “And the next day, and the next day,
and the next...”

It’s 2013. David Bowie has re-entered the building.

ANUARY 8 WAS a Tuesday. We awoke to headlines

that made us rub our sleepy eyes in disbelief. Bowie

had stolen іп like a thiefin the night, uploading a new
single on his 66th birthday (“Where Are We Now?") and
announcing the
March release of
an album (The Next
Day) that had been
recorded in
conditions of
Freemason-esque
secrecy. "Where

Bowie'ssinging
is magisterial,
spanning an

actorlyrange of неш.
voices with гы ерни
consummate E vow
ease... a frail Bowie
scouring his
memory for video

footage of his past. The song was comparable to two of
his finest latter-day ballads, “The Loneliest Guy” and
“Thursday’s Child”, but was sadder than either because
you could hear that he was struggling to sing.

34 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

STERLING
CAMPBELL

(DRUMS)

Joined Bowie’s band
in 1992 and served
until the end of
2004's Reality tour.

ёф o and a half
years ago
David took myself, Gerry
Leonard and Tony
[Visconti] and found some
rinky-dink studio to keep
it low-key. He was trying
out a bunch of ideas and
we weren't even sure if it
was going to be a record.
l've been playing with
David since Black Tie
White Noise, so it wasn't
like there was this crazy
new approach. But David
would be in the room
playing with us, which
doesn't happenalot. Even
the drums bleeding into
his mic became almost
part of the concept. The
special stuff is David's
songwriting, he's always
got a sense of adventure.
When we were playing
these songs they just had
working titles. Then David
started switching things,
so | don'treally know what
I'm playing on. It's like,
‘| don't know if it's gonna
be a boy or a girl!"

But a magician must perforce deceive in order to lay
his trick. "Where Are We Now?” was а classic case of
misdirection. Bowie *wanted to sound vulnerable",
revealed co-producer Tony Visconti, his relief exploding
like a cork from a bottle now that he was finally free to
discuss the project. The Next Day, Visconti stressed, was
an album of *blistering rock" and we were unlikely to
glean too many clues from the single. But by the simple
expedient of identifying a handful of Berlin landmarks,
Bowie ensured that the public would be primed to expect
melancholia, old haunts, fading memories and bygones.
They'd be tantalised by the prospect of this legendarily
enigmatic man looking back over his 66 years in a mood
ofregret (or maybe pride) and phrasing his mortality in
verses of honesty and disclosure. The publicis about to get
the shock of its life.

One of the album's characters is 22. Another is 17. Another
could be as young as 14. Far from concerning itself with
Bowie's demise, two songs openly wish death on others.

If Bowie was granting interviews, which he isn't, there are
four songs that he'd be quizzed about by every journalist in
every city. One of them is so provocative that when The Next
Day goes on sale in Hollywood, A-list celebrities will start
texting each other in a panic. Bowie's singing on the album
is magisterial, spanning an actorly range of voices with such
consummate ease that other singers will be left wondering
how he does it. There are some criticisms, of course; it's

nota flawless masterpiece and it loses its way badly in the
middle. But its aggression and intelligence demand our
unconditional attention. The lyrics are fascinating. There's

more language to engage with than on any Bowie album,
arguably, since Outside — quite an achievement as Outside
was virtually a novel. Bowie's lyrics, in fact, provide the
answer to the question Why Has He Come Back? He's come
back, clearly, because he has plenty to say, and new ways of
saying it, and couldn't keep silent any longer.

LOUD DISCHARGE FROM the drums (whoomph!) and

we're in. Harsh guitars dominate the early proceedings.

This is the title track and it's super-intense. This is music
that wants to get us in а headlock and throw us around the
room. We hear a Public Enemy siren squeal and the first
words on a Bowie album in 10 years are: “‘Look into my
eyes,’ he tells her/‘I’m going to say goodbye,’ he says, yeah."
Bowie's punching out the lyrics with the same insistent
rhythm that he used in *Repetition" (on Lodger), but much
fiercer, emphasising key words with a teeth-bared shout.
He takes us on a tour of the alleys, shows us the disease-
ridden townspeople, introduces the *purple-headed priest"
and holds us spellbound as the song races headlong
towards the gallows.

After that thrilling entrance, "Dirty Boys" isan abrupt

detour. It has a wonky rhythm that grinds and grimaces.
A frazzled guitar (Earl Slick) makes some splintery
“Fashion”-esque outbursts, but the sparse ambience is
closer to Iggy Pop's The Idiot than to Scary Monsters. A

baritone saxophone enters with a lurch, almost comically,
as though playing along to a film about a man with a
pronounced limp. Bowie singsin a peculiarly chewy
voice, if you can imagine him sucking a gobstopper

Marchi
RCA (UK), lso/Columbia (US)

CD, deluxe CD (with three

bonus tracks), iTunes, double vinyl

David Bowie and Tony
Visconti

The Magic Shop and
Human, New York City

David Bowie (vocals,
acoustic guitar, keyboards,
string arrangements), Gerry Leonard
(guitar), David Torn (guitar), Earl Slick
(guitar), Gail Ann Dorsey (bass, bk
vocals), Tony Levin (bass), Zachary
Alford (drums), Sterling Campbell
(drums), Steve Elson (baritone sax,
contrabass clarinet), Antoine
Silverman, Maxim Moston, Hiroko
Taguchi, Anja Wood (strings), Henry
Hey (piano), Tony Visconti (guitar,
bass, recorder, string arrangements),
Janice Pendarvis (bk vocals)

There are no cover versions on the
album, but “How Does The Grass
Grow?” uses an ‘interpolation’ of
The Shadows’ 1960 hit "Apache"

If The Next Day reaches No in the
UK, it will be Bowie's first chart-topping
album since Black Tie White Noise
in 1993

"The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" will be
the second single, out February 26

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 35

TONY VISCONTI; REDFERNS

DAVID BOWIE

while trying to impersonate Edward Fox. “I will

buy you feather hat/I will steal a cricket bat/Smash
some windows, make a noise/We will run with dirty
boys." They'rea gang. A bunch of violent kids whose
"die is cast”, who “have no choice". There's something
jagged about the language that smacks of A Clockwork
Orange, and Bowie's stylised voice seems like an extra
device to validate the hoodlums' behaviour as literary,
rather than mindless, destruction. We leave them to
their nightly ritual.

A primary characteristic of The Next Dayis the way
in which it catapults us from one scenario to another,
often across continents and centuries, requiring us to
readjust and get our bearings. If the first song was set
in the Middle Ages, and the second in some imaginary
North London, the third, “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)",
takes us to Hollywood and New York where the parties
and premieres are strictly invite-only. It's sure to be
one of the most talked-about songs on the album.

Itbegins with swishy confidence, busily arranged
to bolster a disappointingly plain chord progression.
There are three guitars (Bowie, Gerry Leonard, David
Torn), a baritone sax and contrabass clarinet (both
played by Steve Elson, a veteran of Let's Dance and
Tonight), a recorder (Visconti), a four-piece string
section and two female backing singers. A snappy
vocal hook is heard from time to time, giving the
song a Style Council pop-soul tinge. The lyrics make
afew punning connections between stars in the sky
and stars in the movies, and then, without warning,
Bowie goes on the attack.

Fame, he once commented, puts you there where
things are hollow. Many songwriters of his vintage
have railed at the ersatz celebrity of reality TV and The
X Factor, but Bowie sounds like he’s going after the big
guns, not the small fry. “The stars are never far away...
They watch us from behind their shades... We see Jack
and Brad from behind their tinted windows... The stars
are never sleeping... Dead ones and the living.” This
is Stepford Wives territory: celebrities with no lights on
inside, menacing, robotic, inhuman. Bowie, losing

Ground controlroom: Tony
Visconti, Bowie and engineer
Brian Thornat New York’s
The Magic Shop studio
recording The Next Da

36 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

‘WHO'S WHO

TONY БШП

(PRODUCER

66 Nf people
are looking

for classic
Bowie they'll
find it on this
album,” Tony
Visconti told
Billboard when
news first
broke of The
Next Day. “If
they're looking
for innovative
Bowie, new directions, they're
going to find that on this album
too." He went onto herald the
record as "extremely strong
and beautiful", adding that "you
could tell from the beginning
that the songs were stunning,
evenin primitive form."

Visconti, of course, was
Bowie's go-to producer during
his classic 70s years, before
rejoining him for Heathen and
Reality in the early 2000s.
Since then he's been highly
active. Most notably as
producer of the Manic Street
Preachers’ Lifeblood (2004),
Morrissey's Ringleader Of The
Tormentors (2006) and a pair of
albums by Alejandro Escovedo,
Real Animal and Street Songs
Of Love.

patience with them, portrays them as ashamed,
scared tribe huddling together in tight packs, bonded
by paranoia, with radiant smiles but vacant eyes, and
with – get this — "child wives" in tow. “We will never
berid of these stars, but I hope they live
forever," he concludes with derision.
Ifit had been written by Brett Anderson,
“The Stars (Are Out Tonight)" would have
minimal impact. Coming from Bowie,
acelebrity at the absolute pinnacle of the
pecking order, it's an extraordinary
declaration of contempt for a society of
untouchables. Many of them will strain
to catch every nuance of *The Stars (Are
Out Tonight)" while asking themselves if
Bowie — one of their own - has coldly
despised them all along.

HE TORRENT OF Bowie headlines on

January 8 amounted to a campaign that

no advertising company’s budget could
have bought. Inevitably, interest in Bowie will have
been reawakened right across the age spectrum,
including tens of thousands, at a conservative
estimate, who haven't bought a Bowie album in many
years. These people will flock to The Next Day and
digest itin isolation. For themit will be an album
without backstory or context. But it can also be seen -
should also be seen - as the third album in a sequence
that got under way at the start of the millennium.

Rekindling his relationship with producer Visconti

after 20 years, Bowie released two albums — Heathen
(2002) and Reality (2003) - that have quietly assumed
the grandeur, if not the commercial status, of late-
period classics. Though they have their differences,
Heathen and Reality share a seriousness, a love of
texture and an ambiguity of expression that allows
multiple meanings to beread into them. In Heathen's
case, it came to be seen as Bowie's response to
September 11. For Reality, substitute the Iraq War.
Bowie has a way of composing lyrics in non-linear

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Cappeople:
Bowiein2012

AR, m

fragments, but with manifest emotion within those
fragments, so that the finished song seems to apply both to
himand to mankind as a whole. He's anxious. It's
ananxious world. He feels alone. The world is a lonely place.
The Next Day has that geopolitical portentousness that
Heathen and Reality had, without specifying nations or
leaders. Many of its characters are helpless or hopeless,
either out of reach or out of their depth. Something has
angered Bowie to the point of slamming down his fist.
He's reminiscent of Peter Finch's distraught newscaster in
Network: “I don’t have to tell you things are bad. Everybody
knows things are bad." Finch ends his broadcast, you'll
remember, by urging Americans to get up from their
armchairs, throw open their windows and shout: “I'm as
mad as hell and I'm not going to take this anymore!"
Soalong with the clanging guitars, a grim trepidation
courses through The Next Day, like the frozen urban tundra
that formed the landscape of Anthony Moore's brilliant post-
punk LP Flying Doesn't Help. In more chilling moments one
can detect the footprints of Scott Walker. It doesn't have to
tellus things are bad. We know things are bad. It cannot be
said to havea unity of theme (Bowie may one day inform us
to the contrary) and it lacks a unity of genre, but The Next
Day can perhaps lay claim to something more intangible:
aunity of climate. As much as it's all-new and shiny, it does
sound like Heathen and Reality's natural successor.

E RESUME. TRACK four: “Love Is Lost”. Bowie holds

his hands down on a keyboard, producing dramatic

chords. Zachary Alford (who played drums on
Earthling) inserts an idiomatic “Ashes To Ashes" catch in
the beat. Gerry Leonard's bluesy guitar fills have a touch
of Stevie Ray Vaughan on Let's Dance. A glam-rock refrain
(“say hello, hello") takes us even further back.

“Love Is Lost” is about an emotionally disturbed 22-year-
old woman. She's alone and awake in “the hour of dread",
“the darkest hour". It crosses the mind for an instant that
Bowie might have devised a character through which to
explore some dread of his own (is this going to bea song
about dying?), but the lyrics become brutal and
personalised as he adds more detail. *Your country's new,
your friends are new/Your house and even your eyes are
new/ Your maid is new, and your accent too/But your fear

WHO'S WHO

LALHARY ALFORD

(DRUMS

With a CV that includes Springsteen,
the Manic Street Preachers and The
B-52’s, Alford last played with Bowie
on 1997's Earthling.

$é e all played live, so it was very
organically played. And David
was just happy as a clam. He was keen
to keep the momentum going, because
that’s what he feeds off. The album is
reminiscent of his early records in some
ways. If you listen to The Man Who Sold
The World and “God Knows 'т Good”,
they're evocative of folk or country.
We had a couple of tunes that were
country. But it’s anew millennium
record, he’s not trying to make it sound
like his old stuff. Although there was
one song from the Lodger sessions.
The working title was ‘Born In A UFO’.
My jaw dropped when he played it,
because | could hear [drummer] Dennis
Davis in there. My hunchis it's now
called ‘Dancing Out In Space’. On one
songl changed the beat and David said,
‘| like that!’ and went in a new direction.
He said, ‘I’m going to change the lyrics.
It was originally going to be about
prostitutes at the Vatican!"

d D
David Bowie and bandat
MadisonSquare Garden,
October1996:(l-r) Zach Alford,
Reeves Gabrels, Bowie, Gail
AnnDorsey and Mike Garson

Bowie, with Gail
AnnDorsey,
headliningthelsle
Of Wight Festival,
June13,2004

ОАТ ANN DORSEY

(BASS)

Bowie’s live bassist of choice
since 1995, up to and including
the Reality tour, and key player on
1997's Earthling.

66 played fretless bass for the first
time on this record. It was all
done ina totally old-fashioned way,
with everybody in the room together,
laying down at least the basic tracks.
| also went back later to do backing
vocals and some lines that David and |
sang together [“If You Can See Me” J.
The song I'm playing fretless on is
pretty spectacular because it’s in this
ridiculous time signature. It’s 7/5 or
something, a strange looping, limping
time signature that’s really very cool.
The rest are a real mix, with different
moods and textures. They’re different
from anything else that’s going on in
the music world. The main thing |
noticed about David was that he
seemed really comfortable in his
own skin. There’s nothing to prove
anymore. So he had a kind of relaxed,
total confidence, just enjoying
the process of making the music.
| don't think I’ve ever seen him
this settled.”

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 37

JIMMY KING; RETNA; GETTY IMAGES

JIMMY KING; GETTY IMAGES

DAVID BOWIE

WHO'S WHO

EARL OLICK

(GUITAR)

Bowie's on-off lead
guitarist since 1974's
Diamond Dogs tour.

66 hen you've been
working with
somebody that long,
even when you haven't
seenthem for a while,
you fall back into the
routine in a heartbeat.
The first thing that me,
David, Sterling Campbell
and Tony Visconti did
was cut three brand new
tracks from scratch. One
is a mid-tempo cool thing,
then we did a couple of
rockers. | overdubbed
‘Set The World On Fire’
later. The key to any rock
record, especially one of
David's, is spontaneity.
l'dgetatake ona song
straight away, whether it
reminded me of Station
To Station or Scary
Monsters or whatever.
From a guitar point of
view there were a few
songs that just hit me and
David, that needed a kind
of Keith Richards rhythm.
| ended up just doing
what came naturally and
it worked. The whole
thing was so secret that
Gerry Leonard didn’t
even tell me he’d been
in before me, and we'd
had coffee together a
number of times. | said to
him: 'You bastard! But
we all understood that's
how it was. That's David's
call. After 40 years of
working with the guy, you
have to respect that."

Bowie with artists

Jacqueline Humphries (the

other face ofthe dollinthe

"Where Are We Now?"

video) and Tony Oursler

(the video's director)
)

isas oldas the world.” Another radiant
starlet whose smile masks a secret
despair? Whoever sheis, her mind is
disintegrating as she stares at her superficial
construct, her plastic lie. Bowie ends the
song with anguished cries of “Oh, what have
you done?”

The single, “Where Are We Now?”, arrives
next, all Potsdamer Platz and elegance,
decelerating the album’s heartbeat and slowing its blood
to a trickle. The Next Day has become a sombre study of
unhappy people depleted of energy. The teenage boy in
"Valentine's Day" is not unhappy, but he's deeply troubled.
He has fantasies about ruling humanity with a jackboot.

He has an “icy heart". He looks harmless with his “tiny face’
and “scrawny hands”, but we do fear the worst. The musical
references are to the past: a Ziggy-style vocal and a whiff of
Lou Reed’s “Satellite Of Love” (from Transformer), which
Bowie co-produced. But Valentine doesn’t live in London in
1972. More like Colorado or Ohio right now. Something’s
about to happen. Valentine is poised to act. The song has
unspoken premonitions of a Columbine massacre.

Bowie and Gail Ann Dorsey duet on “If You Can See Me”,

a bewildering piledriver of a track. Counting the beat is
impossible in its outlandish time signature. Performed and
sung at the edge of hysteria, it’s as frantic as the industrial
cacophonies on Earthling, with some voice gimmickry that
speeds Bowie up to gnome-like pitch. “If You Can See Me”
is an experiment in pushing everything, including us, to
the limit. The verses are couched in abstracts. Blue shoes.
Ared dress. A ladder. A crossroads. “Meet me across the
river.” Children swarm like “thousands of bugs” towards

a beacon on a hill. In one of the album’s most exquisite
passages, Bowie lowers his voice to a lordly baritone and
croons: “Now, you could say I’ve got a gift of sorts/Veneer of
rear windows and swinging doors/A love of violence, a dread
of sighs." But children don't swarm of
their own volition. The beacon on the
hillisanything buta place of safety.
When the lordly voice reappears,
there’s an unstable edge to it, the
shrillness of megalomania. The
character is unmistakably a monster.
“Iwill take your lands and all that lays
beneath... I will slaughter your kinds
who descend from belief... I am the spirit
of greed."

A medieval despot? Or did Bowie have
someone more modern in mind? And is
everyone on The Next Day going to turn
out to be violent and insane?

WhereAre We Now?

"E" au TONY DURSLER

Theteenage boy
in "Valentine's
Day" is troubled.
He has fantasies
about ruling
humanity with
a Jackboot

Coe ©. ў
WHO'S WHO

Video director of

“Where Are We Now?"

|
| 66 TFIRST | wondered if l'd be able to live
up to a project like this, given the

gravity of the situation, the surprise
of coming back after ten years of silence. But |
listened very carefully to what David was saying
and he already had this crystallised, fully articulated
image for the video in his head. There were a few
things that we teased out together, so it’s а кіпа
of overlapping collaboration that gave birth іп
my workshop. Those dolls you see - those
doppelganger electronic effigies - аге a trope !'уе
been using in my work since the early 90s. David
used those in '97 for his 50th birthday party at
Madison Square Garden, which was the first time
we really did anything together. So he took me to
his studio, where he had them out of storage, and
said: ‘Let’s just use these.’ It was wonderful to see
the birth of this song riding in on some kind of
electronic magic carpet in my crazy studio."

OR REASONS BEST known to Bowie, the album has a

tendency towards bland songtitles that reveal nothing of

the turbulent worlds inside. “Га Rather Be High" is about
a 17-year-old soldier flown to Cairo to join his regiment. They
have received orders from "generals full of shit". The soldier
has sympathy for his enemy (“Га rather be dead, or out of
my head, than training these guns on
those men in the sand"). He worries
about going crazy and dreams of home.
“Га rather smoke and phone my ex/Be
pleading for some teenage sex." Zachary
Alford adds to the authenticity by
thrapping out a military drum pattern
behind Gerry Leonard's guitar, but
“Га Rather Be High" could do with
some ofthe melodic unpredictability
of *Never Get Old" (from Reality), which
it faintly resembles. As itis, there's no
transcendence, no lift-off. “Га Rather
Be High” grumbles about
generals, shoots and leaves.

THIN WHITE DUKE S DIARY

BOWIES QU

2004: Duets with Australian
songwriter Butterfly Boucher
on a new version of “Changes”

for DreamWorks flick, Shrek 2

2005: Records vocals for “(She
Can) Do That”, co-written with
Brian Transeau, for film Stealth

September 2005: Performs
“Life On Mars”, with Mike
Garson on keys, at the Fashion
Rocks Awards at Radio City
Music Hall іп New York. Arcade
Fire then back Bowie on “Five
Years” and “Wake Up”. A week
later they perform “Queen
Bitch” and “Wake Up” at CMJ
Summerstage in Central Park

2005: Sings on Kashmir’s “The
Cynic”, from the Danish alt-
rockers’ No Balance Palace LP

January 2006: Attends the
New York opening of a Lou
Reed photography exhibition

Top: Bowie as Nikola Teslain The Prestige (2006). Above,with Arcade Fire at Fashion Rocks, at the Gallery at Hermés

2005. Below, at the Syd Barrett tribute with Dave Gilmour, Robert Wyatt, Phil Manzanera,
David Crosby and Richard Wright. Bottom, Bowie at Lou Reed's photography exhibition

in New York. Belowright, out with his favourite music magazine... 3006: Cradited ac executive
producer on doc, Scott Walker:
30 Century Man

2006: Sings backing on TV On
The Radio’s “Province”, from
Return To Cookie Mountain

2006: Plays Nikola Tesla іп
Christopher Nolan’s The
Prestige, with Christian Bale

May 2006: Guests with David
Gilmour at the Albert Hall for

"Arnold Layne" and
"Comfortably Numb"

September 2006:

4 Appears as himself on
Extras, serenading Ricky
Gervais' character
with "Chubby
Little Loser"

November
2006: His
last live
performance
to date,
joining Alicia
Keys at New
York benefit
show, the

. Black Ball.

Bowie sings

QNA
MN

/
Lo
í

I0 YEARS

Since the Reality tour of 2003-'04, Bowie has cut right
down on his musical output. Though he's been far
more active than you might think...

“Wild Is the Wind” and
“Fantastic Voyage” and duets
with Keys on “Changes”

April 2007: Attends the Vanity

Fair Tribeca Film Festival Party
in New York

April 2007: Bowie is among the
guests as Lou Reed accepts the
George Arents Pioneer Medal,
at Syracuse University

2007: Voices villain Maltazard
in Luc Besson’s animated film

Arthur And The Invisibles

May 2007: Curates the 10-day
High Line Festival in New York

2008: Voices Lord Royal
Highness in SpongeBob’s
Atlantis SquarePantis

2008: Plays a supporting role
in Austin Chick’s August, with
Josh Hartnett and Rip Torn

2008: Features on “Falling
Down" and “Fannin Street”,
two songs from Anywhere | Lay
My Head, Scarlett Johansson's
album of Tom Waits covers

January 2009: Attends the
premiere of son Duncan Jones’
directorial debut, Moon, at the
Sundance Festival in Utah

April 2009: Joins Duncan for
the New York premiere

2009: Cameos as the subject
of the male lead's hero worship
in musical comedy Bandslam

January 2010: Releases live
album and DVD A Reality Tour,
recorded in Dublin in Nov 2003

June 2010: Attends the late
Les Paul's ‘95th birthday bash’
at New York's Iridium Jazz Club

June 2010: Goes to the CFDA
Fashion Awards at the Lincoln
Center, NY, with wife Iman

April 2011: Bowie and Iman
attend the DKMS' 5th Annual
Gala: Linked Against
Leukemia, honouring Rihanna
and Michael Clinton, at
Cipriani Wall Street, NY

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 39

REX FEATURES; KEVIN MAZUR/WIREIMAGE FOR NEW YORK POST; GETTY IMAGES; INFPHOTO.COM

©ВЕМ SCHNEIDER/CELPH/CAPITAL PICTURES; ICONICPIX; NINA SCHULTZ

WHO'S WHO

(GUITAR

Dublin-born guitarist,
Bowie’s musical

director on Reality tour

“| acted as band
leader through
the Reality tour, so it
kind of clicked back
into place when we did
these sessions. We'd
all huddle around the
piano and David would
play a rough demo
that he'd either made
at home or that

we'd done back in
November 2010. Then
we'd all go to our
stations and work on
sounds and ideas. The
sessions all moved
really quickly, but
were never rushed.
David likes to work
hard in short bursts
and get it done. At
times we were
tracking a song and

he was writing lyrics at
the same time. It was
almost distracting.
One time he called me
back in: Just trust me
and bring a favourite
guitar.’ He and Tony
had sourced a 70s
Marshall stack from a
picture of a rehearsal
room back in the Mick
Ronson days. It’s
always so satisfying

to play electric guitar
with David. He's the
only singer | ever
worked with who asks
me to play louder:
‘Sounds great, Gerry!
Can you turn it up?”

4.0 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

DERRY LEONARD

“Boss Of Me”, co-written by Bowie and Leonard,

isa feisty mid-tempo track like “Dirty Boys" with
more of the colours filled in. Again, Steve Elson's
baritone sax is prominent and the backing vocalists
return. All the same, it's one ofthe leastinteresting
songs on the album, with some crude changes as if
ill-fitting pieces ofunrelated songs had been clomped
together as a compromise. There's also a naggingly
subliminal association with Peter Gabriel's
“Sledgehammer”, which it could’ve done without. The
charmless punchline (“Who'd have thought a smalltown
girl like you would be the boss of me?") might have
graced a Mick Jagger solo album, if it were lucky, but is
an incongruous piece of misogyny here. “Dancing Out
In Space", which follows, is equally inconsequential.
A bouncy poptune that revives the
classic Supremes beat (“You Can't
Hurry Love”) which inspired Bowie and
Iggy's “Lust For Life”, “Dancing Out In
Space” has twinkle-star keyboards and
wears a mid-'8os party frock. It's
conceivable that it wants to be “Let’s Go
Crazy” by Prince - when it grows up,
anyway - but the lyrics are trite and it's
hard to care about a sugar-candy
throwaway after the action-packed 25
minutes before it. Who puts a trailer in
the middle ofa film? Getting The Next
Day's psychological measure is tricky
enough without being waylaid by a
song whose chorus sounds like Darts
singing about the boy from New York City.

The many faces of Bowie: (clockwise
fromthis shot) the spiky Earthling
look, the Heathensophistication
and Reality’s smart-casual guise

A plano 1s
tinkled as two
lovers stroll.
Then the lyrics
get a bit nasty.
Then they get

very nasty...

“Look Back In Anger” (Lodger).

But we need to go back as far as
Hunky Dory, and astrange young

man witha voice like sand and glue,
to pinpoint the location of “(You Will)
Set The World On Fire”. It’s midnight
in the Village - Greenwich Village in
the early '60s. Candles are litina
nightclub. There are hints of furtiveness
and concealment. “You say too much”.
Kennedy is mentioned, and Dave Van Ronk and

The album is slipping away. But before we EU A "x Bobby (Zimmerman) and there's a “Joan” whose
know it, we're backin wartime. “How Does The T surname may be Baez. A young singeris hoping
Grass Grow?" fades in like Robert Fripp's looped { to break out of the Village and make her name.
army of guitars on Fripp & Eno's No Pussyfooting, a | = The pummelling chorus taunts and sneers about

nice illusion since Fripp doesn't actually play on the
album. A soldieris writing a letter to his sweetheart
back home. He urges her to go to a graveyard
near some steps (*That's where we made our
tryst”), aline that recalls Wilfred Owen. We
remember from our Bowie biographies
that a grandfather, Jimmy Burns, fought

in the First World War. “The 3rd Hussars
were sent to France and a week later rode
into the battle at Mons,” Peter and Leni
Gillman write in Alias David Bowie. By
winter 1914, the Hussars were “stricken
with frostbite, the horses up to their

hocks in mud". Sure enough, the song’s
chorus goes: “Where do the boys lie?/

Mud, mud, mud!/How does the grass
grow?/Blood, blood, blood.”

A metallic riposte after the Motown
interlude, “How Does The Grass Grow?”
has a compassionate anti-war message,
but is undermined by a curious Bowie-
Dorsey vocal part that imitates the
twangy melody of The Shadows’ “Apache”.
Bowie may have been seeking a Joe Meek-ian
otherworldliness, and so used a tune from 1960,
but the “Apache” motif takes only two listens to
become irritating. Three and it becomes a serious
issue. Much more appealing is a transition midway
through in which the musicians relax and Bowie
sings romantically in a “Wild Is The Wind" style.

The next trackis the heaviest on the album. “(You
Will) Set The World On Fire” stomps in witha staccato
riff like early Van Halen or Rainbow's “Since You Been
Gone”. It features a strikingly eccentric Bowie vocal -
think ofa barmy aristocrat whom the family keeps
locked in the attic — which instantly puts us in mind of

“magazines”. Earl Slick pulls offa bravura solo.
“Be who God meant you to be and you will set
the world on fire,” said St Catherine of
Siena (1347-80).
The penultimate track, “You Feel So
Lonely You Could Die”, isa ballad with
astring arrangement that brings vivid
flashbacks of the Ziggy era. “Rock 'N'
Roll Suicide” looms unmistakably
into view, as does Lou Reed’s
“Perfect Day". A piano is tinkled
sweetly as two lovers stroll through
a park. Then the lyrics get a little
bit nasty. Then they get very nasty
indeed. “I’m going to tell the things
you’ve done.” The lovers have
separated, and now one of them
is hellbent on exposure,
incrimination, the apportioning
of blame. Bowie launches into
a devastating indictment ofa
person he once loved, singing likea
wondrous union of himself, Piaf and
Morrissey. The song will have everyone
speculating. Is he writing in character? Or is
the target real? Bowie sounds consumed with
pain. "T want to see you clearly before you close
the door/A room of bloody history/You made
sure of that." Hetwiststhe knife. "I can see you
as a corpse... Icanread you like a book!" And
now the sexual jealousy: “I can feel you falling/
Ihear you moaning in your room/Oh, see if I
care! Oh, please, please, make it soon!" It's
mighty, mighty stuff. When it's over, you
want to rise to your feet, cry ‘bravo!’ and fling
bouquets at the stage.

Nightmares pervade the final track, *Heat". A sinister
synthesiser buzzes іп a low drone. A bass guitar snarls like a
guard dog. Someone is having upsetting visions. A dead dog
trapped between the rocks. The water can't flow because the
dog is wedged tight. “My father ran the prison/ I can only love
you by hating him more/That's not the truth/It's too big a
word.” Bowie is muscling in on Scott Walker's terrain here —
both vocally and lyrically - and when the eerie violins start
to screech, *Heat" can nolonger hide its palpable debt to
Walker's “The Electrician” (1978), a song that Bowie has
long admired. Walker was writing about the horrors of
electric shock torturein a South American police station.
Bowie's homage, sadly, is too woolly to be convincing. It's
a deflating sensation to see him end The Next Day with a
song so brazenly in thrall to a better one.

Visconti has claimed that 29 tracks were recorded, which
augurs well for another album in due course. Three bonus
cuts from the sessions are included on The Next Day's deluxe
edition. They're worth hearing. *So She" is a charming frolic
through a Serge Gainsbourg '60s pop paintbox, with lush
strings and a glockenspiel melody that Stereolab would be
delighted with. “Plan” is a short, unfriendly instrumental.
“TIl Take You There”, the best of the bonuses, is a driving
rocker loaded with hooks and a terrifically catchy chorus
(“What will be my name in the USA?/Who will I become in
the USA?"). Hypothetically, it would have maximum
singalong interactive potential for a suitably pumped-up
audience. Realistically, nobody knows if Bowie's going to
perform live again.

So it didn’t turn out to be an album of ruminations,
reveries and ghosts. The theories about The Next Day's title
invoking Beckett and Macbeth proved unfounded. The
passing of the days - endless days, blank days - has always
been present in Bowie's work, from “All The Madmen” to
“Buddha Of Suburbia”, and it remains so. The days can look
after themselves. The characters that we are, however, seem
to be gaining frightening momentum as we hurtle towards
the collisions that await us. Bowie has given us that much to
ponder, and more besides, as he withdraws once again. O

The CHANGES Collection, by David Bowie & Masayoshi
Sukita, their signed series of archival grade artist prints from
www.genesis-publications.com; Tel: +44 (0) 1483 540 970;
Price £1,900. For more on Bowie, see March 2issue of NME

LATE-PERIUU BOWIE

DAVID BOWIE

Six albums you might have missed

(ARISTA, 1993)

Bowie had married

Iman. Tin Machine had

С _ folded. Black Tie White

Noise, co-produced
with Nile Rodgers, had topped the
British charts in April 1993.Then a real
surprise later that year: The Buddha Of
Suburbia, commissioned to accompany
a BBC2 adaptation of Hanif Kureishi’s
novel. Not strictly a soundtrack,
Buddha... was areturn to the restlessly
experimental Bowie of Low and
“Heroes”. There were avant-garde loops,
dark ambiences, weird jazz, Mike Garson
piano frenzies and deeply odd
instrumentals. The poignant title track
(a more conventional song) looked back
to Bowie’s South London adolescence:
“vicious but ready to learn”.

(ARISTA, 1995)

А 75-minute concept
album reuniting Bowie
with Brian Eno, who
co-wrote and
co-produced. Outside
(sometimes written as ‘1. Outside’) was a
detective story about a girl's death. Its
murky narrative was cut up by a special
computer programme - the ‘random’
Bowie was back witha vengeance - and
similar methods applied to the music,
which customised harsh hip-hop beats,
violently distorted guitars (Reeves
Gabrels), Garson’s off-message piano
and all manner of Eno treatments. "The
Hearts Filthy Lesson” was heard in 1995's
most disturbing thriller, Seven, while
David Lynch used “I’m Deranged” in Lost
Highway. That’s the kind of company
Outside keeps.

(BMG, 1997)

Released a month after
| Bowie's 50th birthday,

Earthling wasa

! controversial move

into drum’n’bass,

influenced by Photek and others. Bowie
was accused of dilettantism (ironic, since
he’d always had magpie tendencies) and
of being too old to understand the
drum'n'bass culture. But there was
another influence on Earthling: The
Prodigy. Bowie, in the unlikely role of
atwisted firestarter, was almost
submerged by the juddering breakbeats,
the bass bombs and Gabrels’ squealing
guitars. Yet the songs somehow held
their own: “Little Wonder" and “Telling

Lies” had distinctive Bowie melodies,
and “Seven Years In Tibet” was a belter.

(VIRGIN, 1999)

Abandoning
electronica's cutting
edge, Bowie made ап
album dominated by
EIET СаБге!5,
never the most restrained of guitarists,
behaved impeccably. The music was
melodic апа unthreatening, yet Воуле'$
lyrics were anything but calm. Many
wondered what exactly he was trying to
say: he seemed fearful and uneasy. After
a leisurely first half ("Thursday's Child”,
"Survive", "If l'm Dreaming My Life")
'Hours...'toughens up and shows a wilder
side ("What's Really Happening?”, “The
Pretty Things Are Going To Hell"), but it
was, and remains, а lowly ranked album in
his catalogue.

(ISO/COLUMBIA, 2002)
т j Bowie had intended to
РЕ \ , | release an album called
- ) » ‘Toy’, a mix of new
РА - material and old songs
from 1964-71. A change
of plan led to Heathen, co-produced by
Tony Visconti who'd last worked with
Bowie in1980. Keeping two tracks from
‘Toy’ (“Afraid” and “Uncle Floyd”, retitled
“Slip Away”), Heathen added seven new
songs and three covers: “Cactus”
(Pixies), “I’ve Been Waiting For You”
(Neil Young) and “I Took A Trip On A
Gemini Spaceship” (Legendary Stardust
Cowboy). Out of these implausibly
diverse elements grew an album of angst
and atmosphere, massive in scope -and a
huge Bowie statement. ‘Toy’, officially
unreleased, was leaked online in 200.

(ISO/COLUMBIA, 2003)

A keen Dandy Warhols
fan, Bowie reached
into his pop locker

and surprised anyone
expecting a Sturm und
Drangfollow-up to Heathen. Reality was
almost beat group music, with glorious
tunes ("New Killer Star", "Never Get
Old") and a commercial sound. But
heavyweight themes lurked beneath the
shiny surface. "She'll Drive The Big Car"
was about a spiritually unfulfilled woman
committing suicide. “Fall Dog Bombs
The Moon” was about George W Bush
and Dick Cheney. Old friend Lou Reed
hailed the haunting ballad “The Loneliest
Guy” as one of his greatest ever lyrics.

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 41

STEPHEN STILLS

| Story: Jaan Uhelszki
Photo: Henry Diltz

« [TC

Introducing the lesser-spotted STEPHEN STILLS. Neil Young’s
“soul brother”, and a gentleman with “a taste for the posh”, who
can, admittedly be “cranky, but a lot of it’s a put-on”. As a boxset of
his momentous career emerges, Stills sets many records straight.
Like: how did CSN really get together?

HENRY DILTZ/CORBIS

ITUATED ON ONE of LA’s more notorious
stretches of road, half a mile down from Jack
Nicholson’s stucco house and just east of the
digs where Lennon lived during his 18-month
‘Lost Weekend’, is Stephen Stills’ Grange house.
Set behind a deceptively primitive looking
wooden fence, with a street lamp that seems purloined from
The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, you'll find a discreet
electric gate. Beyond that, a long graded road drops down
into a small valley, and suddenly a large stone storybook
house appears out of the fine grey mist. A piece of white paper
taped to one ofthe front door's windows threatens, “Take Off
Dirty Boots by order ofthe Momanagement!” It’s clear who's
in charge here: Stills’ wife of 15 years, Kristen Hathoway,
whom he met when she was managing a recording studio.

A housekeeper lets mein, but not before inspecting my
footwear. Satisfied, she leads me through the sprawling
single-storey house, past interlocking rooms and a sunken
lounge to a large dining room, leaving me in front of a long,
polished oak table. I take a seat at one of the intricately carved
chairs, festooned with small acorns, the sign of eternal life.

A good symbol for a man who recently beat prostate cancer.

Everything aboutStills' home whispers gentility and
understatement. There is little evidence of his history in
Buffalo Springfield, CSNY or Manassas here. There are no

gongs or guitars on display. Whilethere are a few photos of
Stills onstage, they're outnumbered by pictures of his family.
Theonly concession to what Stills does is a stack of black and
white images from the cover of his upcoming career-
retrospective boxset, Carry On, signed with his distinctive
doubleS signature, mimicking the shape of a guitar.

“Tm sorry if lve kept you,” the 68-year-old says. “I have
Pilates three times a week, and I hate to miss it." That, and
weighing himself four times a day allowed Stills to shed over
4olbs before Buffalo Springfield's 2011 reunion tour. Today,
he's even slimmer. His eyes are icy blue, his haira dirty blond,
his smile devilish and knowing. But the thing you notice most
is that he’s an unrepentant raconteur. Spend 10 minutes with
Stills, outfitted in his pea coat and perfectly cut trousers, his
ready laugh and quick wit, and you’ll see what Hendrix,
Clapton, McCartney and countless others were drawn to.

UNCUT: Looking at the finished box, did that make you
see how accomplished you were when you were young?
STEPHEN STILLS: Well, I had schooling. I had classical
training soIkind of knew what I was about.

Were you always so brutally confident? Actually,

Iwasincredibly self-conscious and shy. Bashful is the
great word for me.

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 43

STEPHEN STILLS

the fingerpicking emerges whole. That’s
exactly the way I play now. I had only learned
the guitar a year and a half before — before that
I played drums. Somebody had a baritone uke
and that was the first thing I played. When my
family lived in Costa Rica, there was nothing
todo at night. I had a guitar so after Га finish
homework, I'd goin the bathroom to get away
from my sisters fighting with each other, and

. Where did you learn so much about music?
When I was about five or six my family went to

Louisiana and one ofthe first things we did was go
to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. Back then, it was
perfectly OK for a five-year-old white boy to go and
sit on the side of the street and watch the Zulu
parade go by. It’s the night parade of all the Indian
tribes two days before Mardi Gras. I watched the

whole thing and it absorbed into my DNA. To the о Aid Га play guitar until my hands were falling off.

marrow. At three, I had tap lessons and I can still | Stillsin2013

send my littlefeet scraping across the floor and Does it amaze you that you could pick up so
finding rhythm. I’ve always had asense ofa much back then? I had this jackhammer
pocket, a groove, a rhythm, that's driven quite a few thumb. I’ve got carpal now, so it's not as strong as it used to
drummers and other musicians crazy. I tend to say, “Will you be. There'san “ow” moment where I first pick up a guitar and
just quit rushing?" Ihaveto brace myself for it, then it sort of settles in.

You started as a drummer? Yeah, I was a drummer first. | You’ve gota bigger range than most people with your

| ^ " thumb... Well, maybe everybody except Jimi Hendrix.
In [producer] Arif Mardin's book, he talks about your Neil You П g

keen sense of rhythm. He stole my heart. He was such a ° Are you really the outsider you often insist you are?
master, the kindest, gentlest. He was one beautiful man. 1S ту There'sa certain element that seeks to remind me I'm not.

| | uu brother. | NM
Despite your reputation for being kind ofa hard ass, you 5 à Did you haveasense you were making history in the
seem to bring out the best in people. I can be cranky, but | S like Springfield at the time? No. I was preparing to.

alotofit's a put-on. My father was really a sarcastic son-of-a- we b onde d

bitch. My sense of humour is based around that and needling. My favourite story about youis when you werein LA

Going to military school, being on teams and in bands, you're SO de ep. . Е driving with Richie Furay апа across the road you see a

needling each other all the time. Some people are put off by black hearse with Canadian plates and immediately

that and some people think that’s good guys-manship. STEPHEN STILLS know that it has to be Neil Young and Bruce Palmer. Yeah,
| . Іѕее the Ontario licence plate. Wait, that's a hearse from

Do you deserve any of your reputation? Га rather not be Ontario. I know who that is. “Get around this guy, let me out

conscious ofitas otherwise it’s unnatural and false and I’m the car.” I screamed. I jumped out, tapped the window and

just another poser even though I can get caught out being said, “Neil, it’s me.”

demanding. Sometimes I get frustrated and say, “Will you

please do what I ask?” I can get a little cross. But to quote Was he surprised? No, he wasn’t. But that’s Neil. I said, “I

Arnold Palmer, “I refuse not to be nice.” The older I get, the was looking all over for you.” He said, “This is how dorky we

more dedicated I am to that. If Ido havea flash of temper, I 45 RPM were. We went to 77 Sunset Strip [TV show].” That was part of

feel horrible about it later. (оз (о) the attraction. We're both kinda dorky.

What did you learn about yourself from working on ЛУП С ECORDS Did you know how extraordinary Buffalo Springfield

the boxset? All Га done was move house for my entire LAAS f was? Looking back, would you have done anything

life. Iwentto five different high schools and two boarding AA pup differently? I knew we were doing something special when

schools, and three other schools. I was the perpetual оем ЇТ Brucewasthere. Everything slowed down and we were The

stranger, so that’s what I wrote about on that first song, sopa Rolling Stones. We cooked like blazes. When Bruce was

“Travelin”. But the fingerpicking was there. On that tape 3; WORTH ' gone, Dewey [Martin] would get all amped-up. Dewey was a

baseball-playing Nashville guy who took these pills. So we
got to the studio and we were very excited, and
everything was sped up so fast that it sounded like an
all-insect orchestra. When we walked in to do our [2011]

" | б AW A W i | | 1 reunion, Neil and Richie were singing *Go And Say

^ Goodbye" at the original speed, and it was like they

[ AT [ A | | | N | [ [ | 1 M " were leaping up and down like insects. I went, “Stop
TE right there. I cannot listen to that. Take that record. Put

Stills on the November 1966 LA demo itinto the thing in ProTools that lets you make it go
that inspire d “For What It's Worth" slower without changing key. They have that now, don't

they? Yes, they do. It’s easy.” Then I said, “I will come
“The way | sawit, the riot on Sunset Strip was back and practise that song when you have done that.”
really a funeral for a bar. Pandora’s Box was Of everything I detest about digital, the fact you can do
where you started and ended each evening. that and put it back оп а piece of tape, is like magic.

It was on the island in the middle of Crescent

Heights, they were going to have to bulldoze Buffalo Springfield were my Beatles. What were

it so they could make the big shopping mall they to you? Well, not that of course. We never made
and change the street. | was living in Topanga any money. I had a Ferrari and a cabin in Topanga, and
Canyon, anda friend and | went over on Laurel Canyon to go clubbing. I managed to get my little sister into Stanford.

When we came over the Canyon and came down that straightaway into

Sunset, we saw a whole battalion of cops lined up on one side of the Didn't you have a Bentley, too? I still do. I’ve got a different
street. They were in full Macedonian battle array, and there were all kids Bentley now, but they loom large in my legend. I get the most
hanging on the other side. The only other time l'd seen this had been in understated one I can 'cos I want the very fast living room. It’s
one of the attempts to overthrow the Somoza government in Nicaragua. posh. Iam posh, I will admit it. I’ve gota taste for the posh.

| said, a) ‘Turn the fuck around and go back to Topanga. We do not want

to be anywhere near here. This could go south so far, so fast about, over Ican see that by your jacket. Well, it’s a Tom Ford. I suffer
nothing. And, b) ‘I needa guitar.” for my good taste sometimes.

ДД | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

GETTY IMAGES

Did you always know how to dress? Well, yeah. You go to
military school, you’re going to learn how to turn out. My dad
was apretty stylish guy. I gravitated to friends who knew how
to dress and when I’m ina proper store with a proper guy, I
actually get into getting fitted.

So the rest of us were just hippies and you were dressing
well. Well, just look at how McCartney dressed in Help!.

You’ve been sober for quite along time. Do you miss
drinking? I don’t like itanymore. I don't like being
hammered. ГИ have a drink. I quit for 10 years and Iwas
craving a steak with a marbled fat, and it's like you need a
mojito with that. It's the best thing you can do to your arteries
before you eat something like that because it's got citrus in it
andit'll make everything go right through.

Do you miss the drugs? I’ve seen the pictures. They're ugly.
Giving up pot for me was really easy. I would be driving and
Crosby would do shit like before we'd be going into a business
meeting. He would light up this stultifying shit, and Га say,
"We're going to a business meeting, are you nuts?" They
would do it anyway, and I couldn't get out of the room or away
far enough away from it, so Iwould goin and my mind is
going so fast, Ican't speak. So wejust watched seven million
dollars fly out the window because we're too stupid to
micromanage something that's actually important. I don't
hold anything against him, all he did was do what he always
does. Once, I was going to the airport to pick up someone and
Iwas at Crosby’s, andIgotin the car and! was on the freeway,
and then I wasn’t on the freeway. And I do not get lost.

That'slike your metaphor, you don't get lost.
I don’t get lost. You can throw mein town апа Гі! just look at
the trees and be still for a minute and І know where lam.

It’s funny that being still should be important to a man
called Stills. I thought it had to do witha whiskey still...
coming from a family of drunks. Hearing Judy [Collins]’s
stories recently about her father’s drinking. I didn’t know
about any ofthat. I was so oblivious, so smitten.

You were really smitten, given the number of songs you
wrote about her. Were you like Romeo and Juliet? We got
out before we got to that point. We didn't let them get us.
There wasalot of brother and sister to us, too.

| you feel what was said and all that led up to that key

Lounge music...
Buffalo Springfield,
1967: (1-ғ) Bruce
Palmer, StephenStills,
Neil Young, Dewey
Martin, Richie Furay

Can we talk alittle about anotherimportant union, The
Stills-Young Band? What was that like for the two of you?
Itwas the most fun we had forever. But the band was not
preconditioned to act like Crazy Horse and play whatever,
and change the set every night. We didn't have time to learn
enough songs, and some were more complicated than three
chords, so Neil got bored. The band was a littlestiff and there
weretoo many of them. That's the short answer. Ithought the
cover [Long May You Run] was the best cover we ever did, it
was hilarious. It was great fun to get Neil down to Miami. He
immediately bought an old trumpy yacht and learned how to
drive it, complete with driving into the dock.

Ithink he likes Florida because it reminds him of some
ofthe bettertimes with his mom. They used to go to
Florida and we were probably about 20 miles apart several
timesin ourlives, when we were little boys.

Would you say of everyone in CSNY, you two were the
closest? By about five miles. Neil and I are soul brothers, no
matter what craziness he does. I think it's probably because
we both havea taste of autism. Graham's my brother, but Neil
isreally my brother. It's like we bonded so deep that he's
actually going to be pissed if I don’t call him soon.

You portray women so beautifully in songs. Oh, my
goodness. I’ve never been told that before. That's like little
goose bumps. I grew up with two sisters and I have the
loveliest, smartest women around me, and they're not game
players. Game players are quickly driven out.

Did you always know you had a good voice? Yeah. They
put youin the front centre of the choir, that's a clue.

Do you feel musicians are wired differently to the
rest ofus? It'strying toexpress why do we have music?
Orart? Because we need something beyond words to
communicate the profound. Language isn't sufficient,
but visual art and music have the ability to communicate
the profound. You can do itin a phrase and a glance,
because it's got the whole body involved and speaks to
the whole body, because sound is analogue. The universe
isanalogue. It's manipulation of cells and molecules. So
when you're struck by that, the thought combined with
the mode of the chord, it touches your emotion and

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After they both
performedat the
Monterey Pop Festival
in1967, Hendrix went to
Stills beach house
along with Buddy Miles.
"| wished | had hada
tape recorder running
that day,” Stills sighs.
“Me, Jimi and Buddy
Miles went out there
and we played through
the night, into the dawn.
That's how | really
became a guitar player.”
While Hendrix played
on Stills debut solo
album, and they often
spoke about recording
an album together, very
little exists from the
sessions that they did
together - although one
track “No-Name Jam”,
appears on Carry On.
"The only tapes | have
of Jimi and | are just all
rubbish. They were
rolling tape but we were
just wandering around,
searching for
something to play.

"We were very close.
We were very brother-
like. But getting
together was a pain in
the ass because there
was always this mob
scene. But we would
make room for each
other. There is a picture
of Jimi and me at the
studio and I’m teaching
him ‘Woodstock’, who |
was going to teach that
arrangement to first.”

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BELIEVE IT OR NOT

10 THINGS YOU MIGHT

NOT KNOW ABOUT
STEPHEN STILLS...

Stills persuaded Eric
Clapton to guest on
his debut album in return
for showing him how he
got his acoustic guitar
sound. “1 said, ‘Deal!’
We did that and then
we played ‘Tequila’ all
night long."

One of Stills’

teenage bands,
The Continentals,
included future Eagle,
Don Felder.

Stills gave Chris

Hillman a rare 1939
Lloyd Loar Gibson
mandolin when he
joined Manassas.

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Stills’ first solo

album, released in
1970, featured a purple
polka dot giraffe on
the cover. It was thought
to be a message —
reportedly to Rita
Coolidge. To this day,

Stills refuses to reveal

the truth.

446 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

Stills wrote

CSN's “Suite:
Judy Blue Eyes” on
shirt cardboard,
explaining that “l
used cardboard shirt-

blocking, you know
those things from the
cleaners —’cause they
were harder tolose
than pieces of paper
and they didn’t crumple
up. | could line them

up on music stands

and they'd stand up.”

In 1966, Stills

auditioned for
The Monkees but
couldn't come to ап
agreement with the
show's producers.
The contract for the
show required him
to assign his music
publishing rights to
Screen Gems, which
he refused to do.

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
atLondon's Wembley
Stadium, September 14,1974 |

P TO

2
р)

1
E.

“You want
metosing
infront
of Joni
Mitchell?"
Imean,she
wasthe hot
number...”

STEPHEN STILLS

word, that key moment, that key syllable that makes it - what
was the silly word we had back then? – grok.

The legendary guitar battles you've often had with Neil
onstage bring out the best in you both. Were you ever
encouraged by others to take each other on, or are you
both just naturally combative? They were never guitar
wars. They're civil conversations, not arguments. We work
out our emotions and we might grimace at each other. It's like
playing cowboys and Indians. But that's as close as we get,
but it’s not mean. Music that’s mean has a name. Punk rock.

Did you ever feel uncomfortable revealing so much of
yourselfin your love songs? No. I’m alittle like Taylor Swift
in that regard. Wear your heart on your sleeve, then just write
about it. Fuck em.

There seems to be some controversy about how you,
Crosby and Nash got together. You always say it was
Cass Elliot’s house. Crosby and Nash say it wasat Joni
Mitchell’s. David and Graham have convinced themselves
ofan entirely different story, but the only one that rings true
is my recollection. The first time we sang together was at
Cass’. We showed о at Joni's two days later. Га never have
sung with a stranger [Nash], whom I thought had one of the
most unique voices around. I would have never done thatin
front of Joni because Joni was like a goddess and goddesses
make me weak in the knees. What happened was Cass
walked up to me the day after the Hollies show at the Roxy or
the Whisky - I can’t remember which - and said, “You know
that stuff you and David [Crosby] have been playing around
with. Do you think you might like a third voice?" I said, "Ifit
was just the right one, and ifit was smarter than both of us."
Shesaid, "When David calls you and tells you to come to my
house, just doit." David and Iwere already working together.
Neil had quit [Buffalo Springfield], David has been fired from
The Byrds and we were alone, so we would sing together.

So what happened when David called? I agreed to meet
him. I knocked at the door and Cass opened it and David's
standing behind her. There's a long corridor that leads to a
sitting room. There's aden off to the left, and through the den
youcansee the pool, and there's John Sebastian sitting in
whathe called his mogul chair, which was like one of those
silly Styrofoam beach chairs. He's just having a wonderful
California day. Standing in the far living room is this guy in
his Teddy boy outfit with an Edwardian vest. It's Graham

VIN MILES, MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY, CORBIS

MICHAEL PUTLAND/GETTY; HENRY DILTZ

Stillsrehearsing with
Manassasathis home
in Elstead, Surrey,
March 4,1972

Nash. I said to myself, "Wow, Cass. You said third voice. І
didn’t think you meant that.” So we talked a bit, and then
Cass says, “Why don’t you sing those things you’ve been

doing?” I look around —’cos her chairs were overstuffed
and hard to sitand sing in. So look around the corner
and there’s a kitchen that’s nicely put together and below
that a full stairway. It's a nice space and here's this big
alcove witha gorgeous table, so I take my guitar and I
said, “We’ll doit here.” I go to the far end of the table so
I’m backin the corner and David is next to me on my left.

Do you remember what you sang? Yeah, the two of
us begin to sing “You Don't Have To Cry” and Graham is

pacing between the railing of the little balcony over the
kitchen, and then he said, “Do that again.” We sang it
again. Then Graham said, “One more time.” We

sang it again, because it only has one verse, so we
repeated it twice. Then he chimed in with that

voice, and we knew, at theinstant, that our lives

were never going to be the same. I gradually got it

out of him that his band wanted to do an album of
Dylan covers and he'd written all these songs they
were turning up their noses at it. Then I found out
he's fallen head over heels for Joni and they are

now an item. A few days after, [Mitchell's manager]

Stills came to Britain on the invitation of
Linda McCartney: "Linda was an old
friend of mine from New York, and
called me saying, 'You must visit' and
dragged me over. Paul and | bonded
immediately; it was like we'd known
each other all our lives. We started
playing, and we both said, ‘This is
terrific. Here you take the guitar, I'll take
the bass. No, you take the guitar...’ We
were going a million miles a minute."
Stills also became friends with Ringo
Starr, who - credited as 'Richie' - played
on two tracks on Stephen Stills. In 1970,

Stills, the country
squire, with Peter
Sellersand Johnny,
Brookfield’s gardener

— —

Stills bought Brookfield House, Starr's
16th-Century mansion in Elstead, Surrey
that had previously belonged to Peter
Sellers. “I had the most wonderful
bursts of creativity there,” says Stills.
One of those bursts resulted in
Johnny’s Garden’, about the resident
gardener, who was reportedly the
inspiration for Chauncey, Sellers’
character in Being There. Stills loved
Brookfield, engraving “with our love, we
could save the world if they only knew”
from Harrison's “Within You Without
You” on one of the stone walls.

JEPHEN STILLS

Tur

Elliot Roberts called and said I should go to Joni's house
because David and Graham are there. “You want me to sing
and play all this stuffin front of her?" “Well, yes,” said Elliot.
I thought, at least I can look at her. Maybe she'll sing for me.

I mean, she was the hot number. And I truly have the
weak-in-the-knees form of guy-dom, where it’s “Oh my

God, Ican’t speak." So Га never have sung for the first time
in front of Joni Mitchell.

[love that you knew your life was never going to be the
same. Well, it’s just that sound. Everything was perfect. My
husky, deep thing, David’s voice, Graham’s thing. I related to
Graham. He'd learned all the things I had about the studio
and making records and we were fans of the same stuff. Ijust
chose not to go on the sailing trip that made David and
Graham so close, as Captain Crosby would not acknowledge
thatIactually knew how to sail. Suffice to say, on each of
thosetrips one ofthe crewmen ended up taking Crosby by
the hair and banging him against the mainmast.

After theSpringfield got so closeto becoming stars,
you had another chance with CSN. How do the bands
compare? They were apples and oranges. First of all, the
Springfield never got recorded [properly] as Bruce kept
getting deported, because these assholes taking 15 per
cent wouldn't go to the trouble to get him a goddamn
Green Card.

But were you surprised that opportunity knocked
twice in your life? And then І kicked the door in. It was
that or law school and I couldn't have stood that. Or go
back to my roots with Navy school. I would have ended up
on the wrong side of everything. So fate intervened and
also my own willpower.

Itseemslike you have always been on the road. Why do
you think thatis? Curiousity, and wanting to be there.

Did you always feel you knew where you were going?
I didn’t know where I was going, but I knew where not to go.

It’s funny how the songs reflect the life. The themes
in your life certainly show up in your songs. From
“Travelin” to “Thoroughfare Gap”. Yeah. It ain’t how
far you travel, it’s the ride. ©

Carry Onis released through Rhino on March 26

ИТИНИН

CH-CH-CH-CH-CHANGES -

JIM McCARTY and CHRIS DREJA explain how the train’s kept a-rollin’
for 50 years. “Jimmy was a typical session musician. Jeff was spontaneous...”

JIM McCARTY [back left]: Keith [Relf] was a bit frail and

gullible. He broke his hand ’cos Hollies singer Alan Clarke

bet him he couldn’t break some pieces of wood with karate.

Eric [Clapton, front right] looks quite happy, but I don't

think he was by then. Eric wanted us to be faithful to the

blues, and to do what he said. He was quite hard to know. | бы ААА

CHRIS DREJA [front left]: Eric and I were close, we shared McCARTY: There'd been a quote from Lord Ted Willis calling the group “a cheap

asmall bedsit. We bonded over blues, clothes and humour. candy-floss substitute for culture". Giorgio [Gomelsky] our manager made us
turn up at his house. He made us tea and sandwiches. At least we got a rider...

ws DREJA:Clapton's GI Joe look wasn't intentional. The great secret was that he was

ee illegitimate and his mother had married a Canadian GI, who he visited once a

year. They made him get his hair cut before they'd let him on the base.

McCARTY: Jeff [Beck, front right] was totally different to | zi

Eric. He looks stylish there, but he was used to working ~=] McCARTY: A party to introduce Jimmy [Page, right], initially on bass,
„ || Oncars,so he was covered in grease. But he was much when Paul [Samwell-Smith] left, which was very odd. Paul was very
= | brighter than he appeared. He was a more creative snobbish about even being in the music business. Iremember being round
= guitarist than Eric, alot wider musically, and it suited us. his house in Hampstead, and he said, “We have these dinner parties, and
= | DREJA:Jeffwasa very quiet man who livedinashitholein I feel really embarrassed...” I think Warhol [centre] gatecrashed this party.
= Clapham with his first wife, and played guitar in the van DREJA: We used to hang out at Max's Kansas City café. Andy used to just
7 the whole time. That's how he spoke. turn up with his entourage and "groove the scene".
=

48 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

| =

McCARTY: Jeff left during a tour of the States where we were playing with

LONDON, 1706 all these very straight bands like Sam The Sham down South. Jeff only did
McCARTY: The five-piece with Jimmy and Jeff. Jimmy had one gig, but he got ill, and he lost his rag and smashed up his Les Paulin the
to have everything worked out, he was atypical session dressing room, and then just disappeared. This four-piece with Jimmy was
musician. Jeffwas spontaneous. But after one of the few very neat and businesslike when we played, but it didn’t work so much in
gigsthat did work, the Stones were on next and they were terms of creativity. I don’t think the chemistry was there.

—* embarrassed to come out.

DREJA: Little did Jimmy know that Jeff would break out of
his reclusiveness at this point and go, “Don’t you know I'm
the fucking guv'nor?" For onesingle, *Happenings Ten
Years Time Ago", it was sublime.

="
+

McCARTY: Some agent had asked Chris and Paul
and myselfifwe wanted to play at The Marquee’s25th — 7
Anniversary. Chris and I had done a couple of gigs

in Spain as The Yardbirds, and we worked with a

harmonica player, Mark Feltham from Nine Below Zero

[second left], and John Knightsbridge [right] on guitar.

DREJA: It was a wonderful night. My girlfriend, who'd

always seen me as a serious photographer, was

gobsmacked when she saw me leering about onstage.

DREJA: With our new manager Peter Grant. He wouldn't get down the
chimney, would he?
McCARTY: You did feel safe with him around. You'd hear stories about
what he'd done to people, but he was always very nice to me.

DREJA: Опсе, in Canada in a snowstorm, this Mafia guy pulled a gun on
us. And good old Peter pushed him with his considerable paunch all the
way down the bus and out the door. They were all friends after that. |

15/

А ` e |

| 0s
| DREJA: Jim and I reformed The Yardbirds in 1995. But since my stroke
рч Ч РИЧ ГРГУРУ —— l І К lastyear, Ican't play any more.

VV ALUNATPZAS РОКА ИЧЕ YORK, 17 74 | McCARTY: It’s very odd playing without Chris. And the three other PEG
McCARTY: The Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. I’ve got this one on my | guysaremuch younger, and it's like they're on a different world. I E
wall. I don’t think The Yardbirds were really respected, especially in тт thought it would be nice after 50 years to go back to where we started, Е
Europe, and it was a real honour. Do ме still run into Jimmy and Jeff? | Twickenham, and just do a club gig. Does it feel a nice way to round 25
Very occasionally, at weddings, funerals and Yardbirds gigs. They both | thingsoff? Yeah, it does, actually. а z
turned up playing air guitar one night. | pers
DREJA: The Americans have an Academy Of Dogsitters and so on, but | = SS ur HE РОА — SEE
Ican'tsay it wasn’t nice to get that recognition. The Yardbirds' 5oth Anniversary concert is at St George's Suite, 2rE
Twickenham Stadium on March 15 585

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 49

LET dM
AEN Dr Ж

| ax?
Р Z^ « + E
50 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013 al me +
AU te

Sax of talent: Fela Kuti
# at The Shrine club,
Lagos, Nigeria,1978
“4 `
„З r

~ GENIUS INVENTOR OF AFROBEAT!

“HE COULD WELL HAVE BECOME
THE PRESIDENT OF NIGERIA”

ECHOES/REDFERNS

FELA KUTI

HE ROLE OF unruly populist rebel was an unlikely

destiny for Fela. His father was an Anglican pastor

and headmaster, his mother a nationalist aristocrat
and campaigner for women's rights. Fela Ransome-Kuti
was meant to bea doctor, like his two brothers, andin
1958, aged 19, he was sent to study in England. Instead,
Fela enrolled in the Trinity College Of Music, where he
learned keyboards, trumpet and classical music – he
later cited Handel as his favourite musician.

Fela'slifein early 1960s London was far from his
riotous, libertarian existence a decade later. He married
Remi Taylor in 1960 and had three children, Yeni, Femi
and Sola. Along with other expats, he played jazz and
highlife around the capital's R'n'B clubs, where he
befriended future collaborator Ginger Baker. *Fela used
to come down to the all-nighters in The Flamingo,"
remembers Baker today. *He was playing trumpet.
That's when we got to know him. He was crazy! Buta
very likeable fella. He was a very good friend of mine."

In 1963, Fela returned home to a job at Nigeria's
national radio station, NBC, that soon fizzled out. Fela
was more interested in his band, Koola Lobitos, for
whom he had recruited a phenomenal young drummer,
Tony Allen. “Fela wasn't really the bandleader,” says
Baker. “I mean, it was his band, but the actual
bandleader was Tony Allen, who used to tune
everybody up and organise everything."

The band's success was limited — increasingly, West
Africa was under the spell of Latin and soul, especially
James Brown. In 1969, he accepted an invitation to tour
America with Koola Lobitos. In Los Angeles, Fela met
Black Power activist Sandra Smith (later Sandra
Izsadore), who “gave me the education I wanted,” Fela
said later. “She was the one who opened my eyes... She
talked to me about politics, history... I heard things Га
never heard before about Africa."

Inspired by Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver and the
"black and proud" mood of soul music, Fela perceived
the process of neo-colonial control that held sway back
home. "Being African didn't mean anything to me until
laterin my life," hesaidin the mid-1980s. "We weren't

* 4
-« T
io^ e
T
~

“ме
x

1
4

“NO VISA,
NO WORK
PERMIT!

NO SHIT!”

Fela and his band
inthe USA

N 1969, FELA and
| the Koola Lobitos

embarked onan
extensive tour of
America. Whatever
hopes they had for the
tour evaporated quickly.
The promoter hadn't
obtained the correct
work permits for all the
band. “Мо bread, no
shit, nothing! Now we're
illegal immigrant
motherfuckers," Fela
recalled later. The band
drove across country,
looking for shows,
finally ending up in Los
Angeles. Eventually, the
band fell in with future
Starsky & Hutch actor
Bernie Hamilton -
brother of jazz drummer
Chico - who booked
them at his club, Citadel
de Haiti on Sunset

Boulevard. Speaking to
LA Weekly, Fela’s lover

and mentor Sandra

Izsadore remembers, “It
was a great club, just no
clientele, so [Bernie]
hired Fela to come in,
and he paid him under
the table. In a little bit of
no time, that club was
packed... Hair was
playing across the
street. The cast would
come over and hang out
at Bernie’s place after
they did their show. It
was such arevolutionary
time.” The Citadel
shows attracted high-
profile African-
Americans like Melvin
Van Peebles, Esther
Phillips and Jim Brown.
On one night off, Fela
reportedly gotintoa
fight with Frank Sinatra.
Eventually, indebt and
under threat of legal
action, the band were
forced to leave the US.
“When he went back

to Nigeria, he was a
changed person,"
remembers Izsadore.

Hellraisers: Kuti with |
collaborator Ginger A
Baker, London, 1972

even allowed to speak our
own languages in school.
They called it ‘vernacular’,
asifonly English was the
real tongue."

Fela also discovered
the psychedelic soul of
Sly, Hendrix and The
Temptations. He had
started calling his music
Afrobeat back in 1967, but now it had evolved into a radical
fusion of Ghanaian highlife, Nigerian juju and pared-down
American funk, all streamed through Fela's increasingly
pan-African perspective.

Returning to Lagos, Fela opened a club, The Afro-Spot, in
thesuburb of Yaba, and renamed his band Nigeria 70, then
Africa 70. In 1970, James Brown played Lagos' Onikan
Stadium. Fela attended the show, only to find Brown's band
checking him out later at The Afro-Spot.

“They had a James Brown rhythm section, plus eight
percussionists, doing the African rhythm thing," recalled
Brown's musical director Dave Matthews. “You couldn't sit
down, it was so infectious. It was an amazing experience."

Today, Tony Allen remembers Brown's *musicians came
to our club to see us every night after their show. People like
Bootsy were writing down my patterns. I didn't mind, it was
flattering. Butthe truth is that James Brown's band learnt
more from African musicians than African musicians learnt
from them."

HE EARLY ’70S witnessed Fela’s transformation into

a West African superstar. Оп а series of hit albums like

1971's Why Black Man Dey Suffer and 1973's Afrodisiac,
his music developed a brash, urgent power, bristling with
thunderous horn sections, sinuous solos and call-and-
response vocals, their scabrous lyrics delivered in pidgin
English to cast his message wide. The Afro-Spot, renamed
TheShrine and relocated to another part of Lagos called
Surulere, became a destination experience, its giddy all-
night sessions shrouded in weed smoke, while onstage the
band played for hours accompanied by dancers.

From the early 70s onwards, Fela’s lifestyle and political
attitudes presented an increasing challenge to the Nigerian
authorities. His advocacy of free sex and *Nigerian National
Grass' (widely consumed but highly illegal) became a media
scandal, as did his home - a sprawling compound close to
TheShrine where he held court to a retinue of friends,
musicians, dissidents and hangers-on.

“He did have some friends in high places,” admits Rikki
Stein. “He used to have me hold a brown paper bag full of
cash that he'd give away to worthy causes. One night when
we had run out of money he drove us to a large upper crust

pool. I went into a room and saw rats."
Fela dismissed his old friend's
criticisms — he also gave short shrift
to Paul McCartney, in town to record
Band On The Run [see panel].
Increasingly, Fela was a man of
contradictions. Creatively, he

Felaannouncing
himself as acandidate
for the Nigerian
presidency, 1979

house — he drove very fast and never gave way to other cars 42-— t
– and was handed a vacuum-packed block of notes by a guy | »
who was a senator, clearly delighted to help him out."

“The authorities found it hard to close down Fela because
he was of their class,” notes novelist Diran Adebayo.
“Plus he was reclaiming an African heritage, which was

widely popular."

Not everyone found the scene to their taste. The late Mac
Tontoh, a founding member of London-based Afro-rock
pioneers Osibisa, had known Fela since the late 1960s. He
was shocked when he visited Fela's compound in 1973. “We
were hearing in London that Fela had 10 cars, a swimming
pool and women, as if it's some great place. When we came
there we saw broken cars and a girl pissing at the edge of the

(KNITTING FACTORY,
1993)

Before and after
Fela’s ‘Black Power”
conversion in the US.
The Lobitos’ jazzy
highlife mutates into
the psych-funk and
proto-Afrobeat of
the LA sessions.

FELA KUTI

meres MAL LL

reu
© )

Ge 9

(KNITTING FACTORY,
1973/74)

Afrobeat arrives

on “Gentleman”,
castigating Africans
apeing western dress
(“him go sweat/him
go smell like shit").
"Confusion", all swirls
of electric piano and
Tony Allen's mighty
drum patterns, is a
futuristic suite over
two vinyl sides.

(KNITTING FACTORY,
1976)

"Goand kill! Go and
die!" Fela's tauntat
the dumb obedience
of the Nigerian
military became a
massively popular
street chant - but
brought terrible
vengeance from the
army. It’s stilla killer
slice of Afrobeat.

FELA KUYI

aba LI BALL

(KNITTING FACTORY,
1977)

The slinky groove of
“Sorrow” leads into
one of Fela’s greatest
protest songs,
initially inspired by
the 1976 Soweto
uprising. “Opposite
People” has the

band cooking at
their James Brown
funkiest, and jazziest.

was an autocrat who dictated the
arrangements of his tightly drilled
band - “to everyone but me,” says
Tony Allen — yet Fela’s mischievous
sense of humour and generosity
were infectious, while his social
and political critiques grew ever
more pointed on albums like 1975’s
Expensive Shit, an account of a failed
attempt to bust Fela for weed, and
1976's Zombie, which lampooned
the dumb obedience of the military.
“Fela did some things that really it
would have been better if he hadn't
done,” admits Ginger Baker. “He went
alittle bit over the top. There wasa
political rally that over 250,000 people
attended, at this big stadium they built

for the All-Africa Games. 250,000

(KNITTING FACTORY,
1986)

Fela resisted outside
producers (Bill
Laswell delivered
astinker on Army
Arrangement), but
Benin's Wally
Badarou mixed
spontaneity with an
uncharacteristically
clean sound. "Just

Like That" stands out.

people, everybody smoking dope. The government were
severely worried about Fela, because he was so popular. If
he'd have played his cards right, he could well have become
the President of Nigeria. We called him the Black President."

Theauthorities' harassment of Fela grew worse. His
compound was raided twice in April 1974. Sixty riot police
armed with tear gas and axes arrested and beat Fela,
leaving him hospitalised. His release from prison was
accompanied by a crowd of thousands, and he played The
Shrine that night with his head bandaged and his arm in a
sling. He also changed his name from Ransome-Kuti, which
he denounced as his ‘slave name’ (Ransome had been a
missionary friend of his grandfather), to ‘Anikulapo’,
meaning ‘one who holds death in his pouch’.

| The choice cuts from Fela Kuti’s mighty catalogue

(KNITTING FACTORY,
1992)

Fela’s swansong was
defiant to the last.
The breakneck title
track, a castigation
of Africa's corrupt
elite, also manages
elegance. "Confusion
Break Bones" sounds
weary, though, as if
Fela, by now sick, was
wondering, ‘How
often must | say this?’

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 53

JANET GRIFFITH

LENI SINCLAIR

FELA KUTI

Confrontations and
robbery in Lagos

N 1973, PAUL

McCartney decided to

make Band On The Run
in Nigeria. A fan after
being introduced to Fela’s
music by Ginger Baker,
McCartney discovered
EMI had a studio in Lagos.
Paul and Linda flew
to Lagos with Wings
guitarist Denny Laine and
engineer Geoff Emerick.
There, they found the city

under martial law, and
dilapidated studios with
"half the equipment
hanging off the wall".
Worse was to come. The
McCartneys were robbed
at knifepoint, losing their
cameras, jewellery and
cassettes of work in
progress. Onthe plus
side, the McCartneys saw
Fela play at The Afro-Spot
- "The best band l've ever
seen," said McCartney -
but eventhis turned sour
when Fela denounced
McCartney's visit as an
attempt to "steal the
black man's music" and
showed up atthe studio to
confront him. An uneasy
accommodation between

the two stars was reached,

and Macca's plans to hire
some of Fela's musicians,
without their boss'
permission, were
dropped. Band On The
Run duly emerged, and
McCartney's admiration
for Afrobeat remained
undiminished. "It's
incredible music down
there,” he said. “I think it
will come to the fore."

54 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

Zombie was the tipping point for the military junta
led by General Obasanjo - a former classmate of Fela.
On February 18, 1977, around 1,000 soldiers stormed Fela's
compound - now named the Kalakuta Republic and
surrounded by an electrified fence. Cars were set on fire,
men beaten with rifle butts and women raped, while Fela's
77-year-old mother, Funmilayo, was thrown from
an upstairs window - she never fully
recovered and died the following year. The
house was burned to the ground, along
with the in-house studio and its equipment.
Fela and his brother Beko, who ran a free
clinic there, were both beaten savagely.
Fela's daughter Yeni, a teenager at the
time, recalls *my brother Femi and sister
Sola would stop at Fela's house on their way
home from school, and they told us about
the soldiers. My uncle tried to drive my
mother and us there but it took hours. We
thought it had been a normal raid. What
we saw was so bad my mother started to
scream. The house had been burnt to the
ground and people were walking with their
hands in the air, soldiers everywhere...”
One of Fela’s responses was to marry his
27 ‘Queens’, an act of polygamy he claimed
was part of African tradition and that by
marrying them he was protecting his wives
against charges they were prostitutes. With
typical contrariness, he divorced them in
1986, saying no man should own a woman's
body. Yeni has ambiguous feelings about it.
"Ilearntatan early age that men were
polygamous, so I just accepted it. As a kid,
itwas fun having so many stepmothers,
though now, at 49, Iwonder how my mother
Remi, born and raised in England, really felt."

ELA AND HIS entourage moved into exile in Ghana, but

soon found themselves expelled and returned to Nigeria,

where Fela planned to start his own party and run for
President. The funds were going to come via a lucrative gig
at the 1979 Berlin Jazz Festival, a rumour that prompted
the defection of most of his band, including Tony Allen.
"I couldn't stand the bullshit anymore,” says the drummer
today. “I couldn’t stand the hangers-on, the politics, the

>
4
۹

Conquering the
US:Felaonstage
in Detroit,1986

TONY ALLEN

violence – I'm a musician, I didn't sign up for that."

Fela recruited a new band and more insurrectionary
LPs followed - 1980's Coffin For Head Of State and ITT
(International Thief Thief). He also turned his attentions to
an international audience, although the logistics of moving
a huge entourage around the world proved problematic.

"There were between 30 and 70 people at any one time,"
says Rikki Stein, who co-managed Fela
from the early '8os onwards. “Fela was
banned from every major hotel in Europe. It
was partly the aftershow parties, the weed,
people naked in the corridors, but they’d
forget they’d left baths running, they’diron
clothes on expensive bedspreads. Fela
would show up in the lobby of a five-star
hotel wearing nothing but his habitual
Speedos. Still, we never missed a plane. I’m
proud of that. Fela was a hard taskmaster
but he had to be, they were such a bunch of
ragamuffins. He would fine people wages —
‘Two days motherfucker!’ — he called it his
Ice Cream Fund. He wasn't a great payer,
though he could also be very generous."

Fela'sinternational reputation led to an
offer ofa $1m deal with Motown, who were
setting up an African division, a deal Fela
delayed until the spring of 1985 “because
my spirits told me so". A month before he
was due to sign, Motown's hierarchy
changed and the deal was scapped. “Maybe
the spirits knew something,” reflects Stein.

A more serious blow came when Fela was
busted on currency-smuggling charges on
the eve of a 1984 tour. “I’d taken out £3,000
for himin London," says Stein, *which he
declared in Nigeria, but when he left they
denied he'd done so. It was a conspiracy, they wanted him."

Fela served 20 months of a five-year sentence, his plight
as 'a political prisoner' championed by Amnesty, though
hisrelease owed more to internal Nigerian politics. The
records continued to arrive, though Fela's refusal to play
any of his hits drove record companies to distraction. *Once
he'd recorded something he'd never play it live," explains
Stein. “He’d develop a song at rehearsals at The Shrine in
front of the faithful and record it once he got tired of it."

The Nigerian authorities continued with their persecution

at
—

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and in 1993 the singer was accused of murder and received a
beating so severe that Fela himself thought it was a death
sentence. “He was in pain а lot ofthe time,” reckons Stein.
“He used to have to line up his body in order to play the sax.”

asad affair. He turned from politics to spiritual pursuits,
to the concern of some who distrusted the influence of

Professor Hindu. There were tales of trances and spirit
visions within the Kuti compound. After Fela was jailed
in early 1993, the fight seemed to go out of him. Even that
didn’t stop the regime of General Abacha from threatening
him with jail in April 1997 for his weed-smoking - though
the sight of an emaciated Fela handcuffed in court brought a
public outcry that led to his release. He died four months
later from an AIDS-related illness, aged 58. His funeral
cortege, leading to his resting place near the Kalakuta
Republic, was lined with an estimated million mourners.

Today, the former outlaw is honoured, his old compound
transformed into the Kalakuta Museum. But restoration of
Fela’s recorded legacy is still ongoing. Many master tapes
were lost in the 1977 raid; others vanished. The process has
taken years, often requiring painstaking transfer from
vinyl. *It wasfive minutes' worth of music a day," says
Stein, who remains one ofthe guardians of Fela's flame,
along with his sons Femi and Seun, whose band features
many of his father's players. Asked for a memory of his
father, Seun talks about *my father's eccentricity" but
chooses to remember him “in a Godlike state" at the end of
his life. “He had been through so much,” he says. “He wasa
man of knowledge."

“They beat him with rifle butts, they beat that guy so
badly, but they never stopped him,” says Stein. “I admired
his courage." ©

F ELA’S DECLINE OVER the last few years of his life was

The Best Of The Black President 2 is released on March 4 by
Knitting Factory; the complete works of Fela Kuti will be
released between March and September

Fela with
some of his
‘Queens’,
1984

FELA ON STAGE AND SCREEN

Kuti might be gone, but his story lives on

INCE ITS LAUNCH Off-Broadway in
S 2008, the musical Fela! has become ап

international phenomenon. Mounted
by an unlikely trio of Fela fans, choreographer
Bill T Jones, writer Jim Lewis and oil trader
Steve Hendel, and co-produced by Jay-Z and
Will Smith, the show blitzed New York before
crossing the Atlantic to Europe and making
a star of its lead, Sahr Ngaujah.

In 2011, the musical finally reached Lagos,
playing first, symbolically, at The Shrine
before moving to stadium shows on Victoria
Island. “We took Fela home,” said his old
manager Rikki Stein, “though it took moving
80 people and 40 tons of equipment to do
so.” This year, Fela! reaches Moscow.

In its wake comes Oscar-winner Alex
Gibney's doc, while Steve McQueen will
direct a biopic starring Chiwetel Ejiofor.

Fela tried to make his own cine-
autobiography, Black President, but much
of the footage and soundtrack was lost during the Ás
1970s. Outside documentaries were realised, however. V
Fela In Concert captures an all-night 1981 show in Paris,
albeit with murky visuals and audio. Better is 1982's Music
Is The Weapon, an hour-long profile that includes
interviews and footage from Lagos. Then there’s Fela
Live! Fela Anikulapo Kuti And The Egypt 80 Band, a
record of 1984's Glastonbury performance.

The latter is also included ona BBC Arena doc from the
same year where Fela talks about his brutalisation at the
hands of the army, and shows off his scars. A moment!

Sahr Ngaujahonthe
openingnight of Fela!
at New York’s Al
Hirschfeld Theater,
July12,2012

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 55

INTERVIEW BY ALASTAIR McKAY

VIAM,

ALBUM bY ALBUM

N THE EARLY 1980s, Orange Juice and
Postcard Records symbolised all that was
great about the first wave of indie pop.
They mixed punk energy with a love of
disco to make quirky, beautiful pop music.
But they managed only one hit, and the solo
career of Edwyn Collins seemed to be going the same way –
credibility, but little success — until he released “A Girl Like
You", a global hitin 1994. In 2005, he suffered a serious
stroke, but comeback album Losing Sleep was among
his most successful, and his careeris thriving again. As
his new album celebrates “31 years of rock'n'roll", Edwyn
isin reflective mood. *Orange Juice were aiming to be the
awkward indie group that makes it into the charts," he says.
"That was really too difficult. But nowadays I'm cool with

everything — who cares about the charts?!”

RTT ORANGE JUICE
| ASS. 3 MES i
EF Î POSTCARD, 1992
5 КРИ I Released after the fact
Ж jur during the revival of
Bec d - Postcard Records, and

misleadingly described as Orange Juice's
"UnreleasedFirst Album".

It's billed as the unreleased first Orange Juice
album, but they were really demos, done at
the Helllfire Club in Glasgow, run by Davy
Henderson, not Davy of the Fire Engines. It was
done on a four-track, but I listened to it and I
thought, ‘Before we can put this out as a record
it needs tarting up.’ It was unlistenable in its
original form, so I changed it to eight-track.
And here’s a secret — Martin Duffy of Primal
Scream played some organ, which I mixed in.

When Orange Juice started out, our ambition
was to keep things simple, and keep the essence
of the thing alive. The Postcard time was
exciting. But let's imagine the scenario, shall we?
Those were funny times. In those days, very good
things often ended up in tragedy. There were a lot
ofinsecurities. We seemed like brash, confident
young men, but we weren’t, especially me and
[guitarist] James Kirk. James is shy. I was shy, too,
but not like James was. [Drummer] Steven Daly
did the organising. We were all difficult, but
sometimes [bassist] David McClymont and I
didn’t get on. Sometimes we did.

At the time, there was a lot of discussion about
what direction we should be going in. We really
didn’t know what was for the best, what we
should do with the label, whether we should
be involved with majors, whether we hated
Rough Trade.

Bands are complicated creatures.

56 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

Collins

EdwynCollinsin
1989: goingsolo
inacountry-soul
style

;

ORANGE JUICE

POLYDOR, 1982

m Major-label debut

E alienates some fans, and

fails to produce hit single, despite novelty
cover version.
There was a lot of clashing of egos and a
distance between how we actually were, and
what weimagined we were. Steven was clear
– it was по more indie for him. He wanted to be
on a major. James Kirk was easy-osey. I can't
remember what David thought – maybe he
wanted to stick with the indie thing and see
what happened. I wasn't sure. There was alot
of argy-bargy. But it was good, because Steven
organised a tape-lease deal, which meant
Polydor didn't own the record and we had
more control. But it also meant we had a lot
less dosh to play with. Itwas anindie
compromise. Maybe that made Polydor a bit
half-hearted. There's always somebody that's
a priority іп a record company, and we were
never really it. Iremember Lloyd Cole signed to
Polydor, and that was it for us. Not his fault –
Lloyd's a nice guy!

The producer was Adam Kidron. He was
good. I don't think Steven liked what he did –
the girl harmonies. But it's fine. Wereally
wanted a hit. Covering Al Green's *L.O.V.E.
Love” was an attempt at that. I don't like my
vocal. It's too high for me. We wanted the
credibility and the charts back then - it was
always a conflict. Then the album came out
and got a bad review in the NME. A bad review
in the NME! I refused to get on the tourbus I was
so depressed!

"A
» LIB POLYDOR, 1982

p ‚ | gO Kirk and Daly are replaced
i 4 4 by Malcolm Ross and
«e м Zeke Manyika, bad
T p: EN reviews ensue, followed
by that elusive hit.
Whatthe group needed was an adult figure to
hold it together. Ian Cranna, the manager, wasn't
it. We were capable of being quite childish. James
was brilliant, but he was struggling with being in
a group. I wanted to get on. So the next thing you
know, here's Zeke, and Malcolm has left Josef K
andisinthe group. I was ripping up the old
Orange Juice and starting anew.

The Rip It Up album backlash was quite
significant. Ifelt our career had imploded. But
the album is fine. “Rip It Up", the single — oh,
wonderful! But even then, making hits and
playing that game - I was rubbish at it. We got
loads of girls coming to our shows and they
were all squealing, because I was a pop star,
and I went onstage and said “pack it in!" Iwas
acomplete wanker!

People did get the charts and credibility, but
for Orange Juice it seemed difficult. I was always
conflicted about it. But the look was good. My
clothes were all from second-hand shops, or
Paddy's Market in Glasgow - there was so much
to be plundered. You could assemble a look for
peanuts, if you were prepared to put the effort in.
Two stripy T-shirts, one on the top of the other,
for “Rip it Up”. I ripped it off from The Factory,
Andy Warhol and Gerard Malanga. I bought my
Davy Crockett hatin Edinburgh for £20, which
was a lot of money in those days. And shorts with
a shirt and tie on the cover of "L.O.V.E. Love” —
that was a dangerous look all right.

~ ORANGE JUICE

AC HORNE; SIMON FOWLER/LFI

Orange Juice in1982:
(I-r) Malcolm Ross,
Zeke Manyika,
Collins and David
McClymont

Thee OPM AMOEL ICE

Ee mm:

ORANGE JUICE.

POLYDOR, 1984

Edwyn teams up with producer Dennis Bovell
for a glorious LP that marks the end of Orange
Juice, and sets the template for his solo career.
Dennis Bovell had a hugeinfluence on that
record. Phil Thornally did “What Presence?!” and
Will Gosling made a contribution to begin with.
Therest was done at Studio 80, in Southwark,
London, with Dennis. He'd done some mixes
around Rip it Up, and worked on the *Texas
Fever" EP. He went through all of the bust-ups,
and then we went down to his studio. It was
lovely. There were a lot of his friends hanging
about, but it was really just me and him. Zeke was
there for a wee while to put his drum parts down.
Clare Kenny did some great bass, and Bovell plays
bass all overit. He plays piano, he does vocals. It’s

more like my first solo album. Ofall the Orange
Juice albums, it’s my favourite because it’s the one
I had most control over. And I’m more confident
about my singing. My voice is better. On You Can't
Hide Your Love Forever, it's a joke. I can't listen to
it. Some people love it. I don’t. Гат quite insecure
about my voice, but on The Orange Juice I’m much
happier. Maybe it’s because I have a man's voice.
Previously, I had a boy's voice. Ora girl's.

It’s a great record, but Polydor just couldn't wait
to be shot of me. Typically, as I knew they wanted
rid, Iwentin and demanded TV advertising. They
looked at me as if] was bonkers. So we blew the
last of the Orange Juice money on TV ads, which
was insane. We'd done a video for “What
Presence?!” with Derek Jarman. He had a great
producer called Sarah Radclyffe, who went on to
make lots of great films. So we went to her for the
ad, and she took over. Nic Roeg’s son, Luc, who
worked on “What Presence?!” and his brother Nic
Jr directed this advert. So we had a load of ads on
Channel 4, just to bang the final nail in the coffin.
The advert says: ‘The fantastic new album from
Orange Juice’, and then Zeke goes: ‘which
includes the flop singles’ — and there’s a bit
on the screen going ‘flop... flop... flop’ - “Lean
Period”, “What Presence?!”...’ That went down
astorm, as youcan imagine.

Musically, that record is more like my solo
records. There’s the Northern Soul idea, “I Guess
I’m Just A Little Too Sensitive" – it’s soul and my
voice mixed together. You're always going to have
a funky bit in there when you're working with
Bovell. It was a turbulent time, as per usual, as
l'djust parted with the group, but I was ina great
streak of songwriting.

) " / ] |

DEMON, 1989

After afive-year

hiatus Collins makes

his solo debut, a crafted
album rich in country
and soul influences...

My first solo record, and I like it a lot. It’s me
experimenting, with Dennis Bovell on bass
and Dave Ruffy on drums. But I’m indisputably
the boss!

It was torture getting that album made. After
Orange Juice finished it was very difficult. I
don’t know why, because I was really at the peak
of my game. Maybe because I had alienated so
many people, I couldn't get a record deal. I had
areputation. I had a slightly mocking attitude
towards the music business, which is possibly
at the back of this.

There were a few difficult years. I was playing
The Town & Country Club and filling it, and still
not able to get a deal. But by the time we got to
recording in Cologne, for a small German label
called Werk, who had a beautiful studio, I had
the record all ready to go. So I went over and
polished it offin short order, and they licensed
itto Demon here.

The time in the studio in Cologne was very
happy. The record did well, by my standards.

It made money. Maybe there was more of a
country influence at that time.

There are songs like “Let Me Put My Arms
Around You", which is pure country music.
Grace [Edwyn's wife and manager| made me
listen to a lot of country records back then,
and we used to go the Wembley country
festival. I saw Willie Nelson there. This was
before alt.country.

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 57

RANKIN

Ыы ы ы ы ы ы,

“у,

-—
V.
Чет Cota XT
e Jy

LE тә ә Р

ЅЕТАМТА, 1994

Out of the blue, а

worldwide hit, with

the glorious “A Girl
| Like You"...

The music business had taught me I needed to be
in control of making records. If Ihad to put my
hand out and ask permission, that was never
going to be viable. SoI decided I had to have my
own studio. I started thinking about that in 1990.
Ву '94, I had a studio, sharing with this guy, Mark
Thompson, in Ally Pally. ButIwas getting
evicted. I had six weeks to make the record. But
Iwasraring to go. There's only one song I wrote
inthe studio, and that was "A Girl Like You".
Iremember the fuzz solo and the vibraphones,
and my voice. To me, it's three notes, like
Northern Soul, mixed with me.

Iwas chasing that record all round the world
for a year and a half. There was no politics. It was
myrecord. I owned it. Keith Cullen of Setanta
didn’t like it, because it was too poppy for an
indie label. The phones didn't stop ringing.

The floor was papered with faxes. It was
pandemonium, in a good way. You had to keep
going and you could never catch up. But the
record was still out there going crazy. There was
nothing we could do to stop it.

Therecord wasn't a hit here the first time I put
itout, and it came galloping back. I finished
recording one day, and we packed up the next.
The studio went into storage until I found
West Heath.

58 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

Collins: “The
music business
hadtaughtmel
neededtobein
controlof making
records”

M. wr Xp 30 xp Pec Be XE Ў

БАБ i iSc Una

SETANTA, 1997
Back to normal- а
playful album full of
М0 hits that weren't...
I ew my son Will which should be the single
and he said "Magic Piper Of Love". It got to 32. It
was funny, we rode that wave back to the way it
always is, which is not quite making it. That
album’s got “Keep On Burning” onit. Why would
that not be a hit when “A Girl Like You” is? But
that was fine – I decided to concentrate on West
Heath, the studio. I was obsessing on recorded
sound and its history, and techniques. I’m Not
Following You has the AED logo on the sleeve. We
were having all sorts of ideas. After the hard work
of “A Girl Like You”, here I was, in my lovely
studio, plenty of time, no money worries. It was
glorious, I was able to indulge myself. AED was
one of the things that came out of it. The track-
sheets for the studio have always had AED
printed on them - it means Analogue Enhanced
Digital. I was working with boffins back then,
and there's a company called EAR, which stands
for Esoteric Audio Research. When it came to
naming my label, that was the obvious thing.
Mark E Smith is on that record. What can I say?
Actually, he was all right. On “Seventies Night”
he completely improvised. It had pages of lyrics
that were amazing, he went on for 10 minutes. So
itwasalotofediting. He made a couple of helpful
remarks. He'd say, “You what?!" Later, he said:
“ГЇ cut your hands off.” Steady on mate!

“Songs are
about capturing a
mood, strange and
spontaneous...
they're easier these
days, I feel fluent”

: fs $ LIAS EDIP 0.1
y ЧР ó { Ў HEAVENLY, 2010
КЕ | After suffering a stroke in
Sade м ^ 2005, Collins makes a
^ Oa.
ЕЗ. v a remarkable recovery, and
Wo e t 4
v4 ъ „ , „ atriumphant return.
+F аа ^" | Twoweeks before leaving

ае ы), I wrote а song, “I’m Searching For The
Truth”. Grace said to me, “Is this the beginning

of your next record?" and I said “Yes.” This is
always going to bea very special record to me.

It was made quickly. It was a busy time. I'd put
Home Again out, which was recorded before my
stroke, mixed after. And then there was my first
attempt to play live. Then the first step was to get
backin the studio, get my brain ready to mix, able
to have an opinion.

Atthat time it was firsts, firsts, firsts. I did a
show, then a tour. It was a while before I started to
think about recording songs. It took me a while to
get back into writing songs,
and then it suddenly came.
"Searching For The Truth"
was the first one I wrote,
and then “Losing Sleep”.
It’s a Northern Soul idea - I
played simple glockenspiel
-a vibraphone, it's called.

Drawing in pencil and
crayon was like therapy for
me. But songs are different.
Songs are about capturing
a mood, something strange
and spontaneous. My
writing style now is about
getting the ideas down on a dictation machine.

I feel songs are about capturing the essence...
anyway, they’re harder work than sketching
birds and animals and insects. Songs are

harder to pin down. But they’re easier nowadays.
I feel fluent.

| Y INDER C A Zi
n 1 ~] HT)

X j r
= A A98.

AED, 2013

Northern soul, rock'n'roll,
a Velvets pastiche -
Edwyn's back!

Inaturally tend towards
being upbeat, though the
first song I wrote for this record was a slow one,
“Down The Line”. Maybe I'm an upbeat person.
Grace always has to tell me to do something a bit
more mid-paced to give the album character. I
tend to do stompers and swingers and racing
songs. *Forsooth" is a homage to The Velvet
Underground. Paul [Cook]’s drums are Maureen
Tucker. Grace didn't like the words. She was
going mental. Sometimes, because of my
dysphasia, I can get stuck in a groove. The same
references come up. The same phrases. When

it comes to lyrics, it's an extra barrier. It's a
challenge to get past that tendency to repetition.
But “Down The Line" has good words. “Too Bad
(That's Sad)" is not great. The way I write words
has changed alot. Before my stroke, the verse
and chorus was easy. After my stroke, the
choruses are good enough, but the verses take a
long time to find the right meaning. I used to do
wordplay for my own satisfaction. I had to satisfy
myself I was the cleverest of the cleverest. Before
my stroke, I played with lyrics, after my stroke,
it's direct. To the point. Oh, and on *31 Years"
Iplayed Memphis guitar at the beginning,
banging on the neck, Memphis chords, so I’m
happy. I’m back on the guitar! ©

[RS

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LOW

SUB POP

THIS MONTH: SUEDE | JOHN GRANT | EDWYN COLLINS & MORE

More raw beauty from the Duluth veterans, heightened
by lashings of piano and JeffTweedy... By Graeme Thomson

ACCORDING TO THEIR singer
_ and guitarist Alan Sparhawk,

8/10
Low decided to ask Jeff Tweedy

to produce their 10th album after visiting Wilco’s

bassist Steve Garrington - have made a powerful
weapon out of fervent understatement, but during
thattime there have been several exploratory
detours. For all that it largely conformed to the

1 Plastic Cup Chicago recording complex, The Loft, and hearing band's slow-burning ethos, their last album,

2 Amethyst tracks from the forthcoming Mavis Staples album. 2011's C'Mon, had relatively plush accoutrements:

5 SoBlue Sparhawk remembers the sound he heard that keyboards, lap steel, strings, banjo, guest vocalists.
4 Holy Ghost day as “simple, raw and intimate", and there are far Its predecessor, meanwhile, 2007's glitchy Drums

5 Waiting worse ways to describe The Invisible Way. Anchored And Guns, was Low at their most scattered,

6 Clarence White inaunifying stillness and sonic simplicity which, overloaded and oblique. Six years on, Sparhawk

7__ Four Score even by Low’s austere standards, errs toward the describes that record as an “experiment in

8 Just Make It Stop spartan, in its own quiet way it's as confrontational having no direction”.

9 Mother as anything the Duluth trio have ever done. The Invisible Way travels to the other extreme.

10 OnMyOwn Since their 1994 debut, I Could Live In Hope, Low – Thisisa tight-knit collection of songs 4

c
c

To Our Knees

Sparhawk, his wife Mimi Parker and, latterly,

exploring varying shades of silence. Rather

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 61

ZORAN ORLIC

Low getreflective: (l-r)
Steve Garrington, Mimi
Parker andAlan Sparhawk

thana retreat back to first principles, the sparseness
feels like a new destination in itself, as though
they’ve had to work and work to finally find the
conviction to let this amount of space inform their
music. It brings its own drama. The lowering
“Amethyst”, dark and thick as molasses, is barely
there at all, butis far from inert; the air around

thesesongs thrums with tension.

It's hard to think ofany Low album that has

62 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

VERNON YARD, 1994
Minimal right down to its
11 single-word titles, their
Kramer-produced debut
owes an obvious debt to
Galaxie 500 and Red House
Painters, yet these hazy
funeral marches and
pared-down laments
make for aremarkable and
haunting introduction.

8/10

floated quite so far above specifics of time or place.
Although some of The Invisible Way resembles past
works - particularly the more hushed corners of
C'Mon, such as “$20” or “Done” - it contains barely
any hint of the band’s formative post-rock or
slowcore aesthetic, nor of the kind of twinkling
prettiness of something like “Try To Sleep”. The
textures here are classic and overwhelmingly
organic. Electric guitars are largely absent, save

KRANKY, 2001

Classic fifth album, produced
by Steve Albini, on which
Low embrace a greater
sonic expansiveness via
piano, horns and samplers.
Theresult is perhaps their
most compelling collection,
with "Like A Forest" and

“In Metal" providing new
glimmers of optimism.

8/10

for a smattering of silvery shards and stately
baritone twangs. “On My Own” is the album's
sole instance of the weather turning truly squally,
and even that begins with a soft spring in its step

before breaking down midway through into a

LOW

| THE GREAT
| BESTROYEE.

SUB POP, 2005

An uneven record, perhaps,
but almost every incarnation
of Lowis represented: folky,
poppy, indie, tribal, glacial,
but most of all noisy, as the
band and Flaming Lips/
Mogwai producer Dave
Fridmann pepper their
customary austerity with
frenzied guitar attacks.

8/10

lurching blizzard of angry, overloaded guitars.

The only other things that could be considered
vaguely flighty are “Just Make It Stop”, a pounding,
Spector-meets-Velvet Underground almost-pop

SUB POP, 2011

Recorded in the same Duluth
church as 2002's Trust, this
elegant and emotionally
rich record seems like the
logical destination of past
Low albums while pointing
towards The Invisible Way.
Includes the insistent
"Nothing But Heart"

and "Witches", featuring
Nels Cline. GT

9/10

ZORAN ORLIC

song, and "So Blue", one of those Low tracks that
employs rigorous repetition to spiral towards a
thrumming climax, pounding up and up over a
Mo Tuckeresque primal heartbeat and resounding
piano chords.

In such a carefully calibrated sonic landscape the
slightest oftouches make a real impact; the amount
of pianoon the record is certainly significant. It is
used not to provide prettifying background colour
butasa deep, dramatically percussive counterpoint
to songs such as “Waiting”, where whole seconds
pass between each booming note while Parker and
Sparhawk sing about suicide and promise that “the
truth can hide sometimes right behind the sorrow".
Like “Just Make It Stop” — with its tumbling hysteria
and lines about being “close to the edge/At the end of
my rope” — it’s the sort of Low song that makes you
fleetingly fear for both the state of their minds and
the state of their marriage.

The fact that Parker sings five of eleven tracks (as
opposed to the usual one or two) is The Invisible
Way’s other obvious point of departure, and one of
its great strengths. There are shades of Patti Smith
at her purest on the stunning “Holy Ghost”, perhaps
the closest Low have ever come to down-the-line
country-gospel, which suits a lyric where religious
fervour burns slow. On “So Blue” and “Four Score”
she adds ghostly harmony, high and sweet, to her

own lead vocal, to

mesmerising affect.
Lyrically these songs
tends towards the
Recordedat: impressionistic,
The Loft, Chicago, stubbornly resisting
autumn 2012 any overly literal
Produced by: interpretations. A
Jeff Tweedy notable exception is
Personnel: “Plastic Cup”, where the
Alan Sparhawk titular vessel is used to

collect a sample during
adrug test and then, a
thousand years later, is

(vocals, guitars),
Mimi Parker (vocals,
drums, piano),

Steve Garrington unearthed and awarded
(bass, keys) great significance by a
future civilisation
who declare it the

"cup the King held every night as he cried". This
is history depicted as one long absurdist essay
in misunderstanding.

Elsewhere there are several customary
intimations of faith. Both Sparhawk and Parker
are Mormons, and “Four Score" — beyond its title,
with its Biblical intimations - has the quiet,
dignified weight of an old hymn where many
are "lost and forsaken, but none forgotten". On
“Mother”, a gently undulating nursery rhyme,
Sparhawk moves from the deeply personal - “you
thought I'd be a daughter but didn't mind" — to an
imagined day of universal resurrection *when
every child and mother will return".

Sung beautifully by Parker, the closing *To Our
Knees” is а testament to a spiritual love that has
been tested to extremes and yet still found to
be true. A perfectly cut gem, it provides the
album with an exhausted but stunningly
beautiful conclusion.

“Clarence White” proves to be a more agitated
examination of similar themes. A dark, bluesy
gospel, the stomps, handclaps and big, bassy
piano chords punctuate a fraught narrative which
includes a walk-on part for Charlton Heston and
the “destroying angels” of Cecil B DeMille’s Ten
Commandments. Written after a recent flood that
tore through Duluth, itis a song not about the late,
great Byrds guitarist but about religious terror
and the avenging power of the elements.

“You think it’s pretty, but I am a raging river," sings
Sparhawk. It is the album’s most impassioned
vocal performance, high and hair-raising. It is
alsoalinethat encapsulates the strange, unsettling
beauty of the entire Low oeuvre, and this record
in particular.

Still waters, running dark and deep.

DOF

New Albums

Alan Sparhawk on the new album, Mimi Parker’s
singing and working with Jeff Tweedy

HY DID YOU want to work

with Jeff Tweedy?

Wilco have been real friendly with

Low, and they invited us to stop in
at their rehearsal space in Chicago. Jeff was
working on Mavis Staples’ record and he played
us some tracks. Right away it was, ‘Wow!’ It was
real raw and simple, yet they were getting these
amazing sounds. I asked if he'd beinterested and
afew days later we put it on the calendar. Him
being a writer and singer who has made a lot of
records, there was common ground and it meant
we could work on subtle details right away. We'd
done our homework and he was abreast of that.

Even by comparison to other Low records,
The Invisible Wayisincredibly sparse.

Jeff ended up being kind of the anchor for that
aesthetic. There were times - times of weakness!
-when I thought we should add another guitar or
other things, but Jeff was like, “No, no, let's see if
it will hold together." We
went in pretty tight with our
songs. We realised there

some pretty piano at the end”, we wanted to let it
bealmost everything, then we'd add guitars or

drums or whatever. The piano can be a powerful
tool if you dive into the voicings and the way you
use chords. The dynamics are really interesting.

Some of the words hint at real turmoil. Do you
and Mimi everstartle each other with what
you write?

Weonly discuss it when we have to. There is some
mutual recognition ofthe fragility ofthat part of
writing a song, and sometimes bringing someone
elseinatthe wrong stage to make comments can
shut it down. I want to impress her, so usually!
only play something that isn't quite done if I’m
sure it’s got whatit takes already. She’s pretty
private as well - now and then she'll ask for some
help with lyrics, but she'sa little nervous about it.
Isn't that a weird thing? I’ve known her since she
was nine, yet that moment when you let lyrics out
ofthe gateis such a fragile, insecure one. In many
ways we are the most
dangerous people to
present each other's ideas

was only going to be two or “The re were times of to, because the better you

three things going onin know someone the harder

each song, and the hope we akness whe Te I on them you can be.

was to havea unifying

sound. Jeff did quite a bit thought we should “Clarence White” - it's

of cheerleading for that. : not really about Clarence
add another guitar = ^ white,isit?

Why does Mimising РҮ j Well, it wasn’t like I decided

more this time? Jeff Tweedy said N 0! to write a song about

Lowison high alert for : . A Clarence White. It started

Mimi to sing songs! She

started writing more this

time. We probably came closest to convincing her
to doa whole record of her singing. We might yet
pull that off. There are probably a lot of fans who
won't admitit to my face but who would rather
hear Mimi singing than me and I'm fine with that.

The other big thing is all that piano.

Yeah. At first was a bit cautious, because it's so
weighed down by history and association. The
key was that instead of saying, *OK, let's add

with random phrases, and

thenIcouldn't really come
up with anything better. I like that writer-listener
game, when you evoke names and people ponder
the significance. The second verse is about a
storm we had this summer in Duluth. The land up
and away from the lake took on all this water and
drained into Lake Superior, right across the city.
It tore out a few roads. It’s also about The Ten
Commandments, they’d show it every Easter on
TV when! was growing up and I used to find it
terrifying! INTERVIEW: GRAEME THOMSON

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 63

New Albums

و
TRACKLIST‏

she found now

only tomorrow
who sees you

isthisand yes

ifiam

new you

in another way

nothing is

wonder 2

SC омол & QI =

64 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

MY BLOODY
VALENTINE

mbv

MY BLOODY VALENTINE

No surprises, but a whole lotta gorgeous noise. Ву Rob Young

8/10

ARRIVINGIN THE week the
skeleton of Richard III was
identified, receiving m b vis
similarly akin to coming face to face with history.
Dug up and painstakingly reconstructed, we
know thatin its own time, this entity, My Bloody
Valentine, valiantly vanquished its shoegazing
foes, was king ofits domain, but was brought
down, asall things must be, by its own folly –
retreating to a tent and indulging its vainglorious
fantasies. Now, in a more technological age, it
can bereconstructed with pinpoint accuracy:
the dead can come to life before your eyes.

If Psychocandy opened the indie feedback gates
in the mid-1980s, with bubblegum pop slathered
in asickly noisette, it was MBV who took a
blowtorch to the Reids' aspic of Spector/Stones
references, smelting verse/chorus structures into

anorgasmic slew of vinegary chord shifts and
burnt-sugar distortion. Loveless remains a
singularity from that interim epoch, post-punk
and post-Smiths, pre-Oasis. Nevertheless, there
have been so many pretenders to this particular
throne emerging in the vacuum since 1991, that
you forget how completely they owned it.

Four years ago, I stood in front of an outdoor
stage ata Northern European festival as MBV
pounded out their back catalogue. After an hour,
Ihadto walk away, and that had nothing to do
with the volume. There was something deeply
depressing, claustrophobic even, about these
four adults in their late forties still trying to
inhabit the phobias, sexual obsessions and
suicide bids of their post-adolescent selves. The
‘void’ at the centre of “You Made Me Realise” was
just that — grey, dead and a whole bunch of no fun

CAMERAPRESS

(especially when there are now entire concerts or
CDs which sound the same). I’m not sure we'll
ever really know the full sequence of events that
haveallowed m bv to appear, though it's clear
that ‘22 years in the making’ is exaggerated.

Instead, it’s the work of a more mature quartet
fanning the embers of the fire they abandoned
more than two decades ago. An alternative
view might call this lapsing back into old habits.
Thesum total of which is: if you're looking for
progress, you'll be disappointed. On the upside,
although much of m b v could have been recorded
afortnight after Loveless was released, it rarely
sounds retro. The sonic distinguishing marks
are so pronounced, they appear to have
arrived, vacuum-packed, via some audio-
temporal wormhole.

Everything about the presentation of m b vis
lower case, from the typeface and titling to the
DIY, mail order-only availability. But Kevin
Shields' musical authorship - seemingly
undimmed by his more restrained soundtrack
work - keeps their music in headline caps.

Colm Ó Cíosóig's clattery drums - swallowed
by samplers on Loveless — are more prominent
too, contributing to a more spacious stereo
picture. “she found now”, “only tomorrow”
(ghosted with a melodeon) and “who sees you”
make a brilliant opening sequence, with all the
beloved MBV ingredients: Shields' sheets of
curdled tremolo-guitar underlaying his
overdubbed, shrieking lead lines; the vocal

sirocco billowing from his and Bilinda
Butcher's mouths; Debbie Googe's sticky
tarpit basslines.

Then come the variations: “is this and yes"
swaps the guitars for delicate leaves of electric
organ; while the closest they come to following
through on the more techno-fied routes
suggested by the “Glider” EP comes on the
brontosaurian hip-hop of “new you" and the
glorious controlled feedback of *in another
way". Butthe album's back end, where the
group try to force their signature sound into
slightly different tubes, is the least successful.
Thejackhammer industrial beats and
repetitive power chords of “nothing is" end
up spiralling into the ground. And the phased
breakbeats of “wonder 2” sound like the kind
of junglist crossover that seemed cool in 1996,
but now seems as kitschily archaic as a lion's
paw carved into the base of a chair leg.

Overall, then, m bvis more of a time
capsule than a box of surprises, but the
contents have survived in immaculate
condition. If My Bloody Valentine haven't
ventured very far from their comfort zone,
it’s hard to imagine a more gorgeously
distressed set of songs flowing from any other
source this year. And just like Loveless, this
album is a world of sound unto itself which
you can crawl inside and shelter in: an
emotional bonfire to warm a generation
through another recession.

New Albums

SUEDE

EMMYLOU HARRIS

JOHN GRANT

THE KNIFE

EDWYN COLLINS

CHELSEA LIGHT MOVING
` TERRY REID

THE STROKES

BILLY BRAGG

ALIEN
BALLROOM
ЖОНАР ==

Searing Scouse
psychedelia from
! thebandformerly
7/10 knownasKoolaid
It's heartening to discover
that bonkers psych-rock boogie bands still
exist on the west coast of England as well as
on the west coast of America. This vinyl-only
LPis marginally less demented than Alien
Ballroom's previous work under the Koolaid
(Global Tyranny) banner - *Banks Of The Dee"
isa gently mouldering folk song - although
generally it's transmitted from beneath a
layer of sludge so thick that you'll be checking
for taron the needle. *Hogs Are Coming"
is the bleary battlecry of a stoned biker gang,
while the lobotomised lumber of “Forty Топ
Rock” makes The Stooges sound like the
Swingle Singers.
SAM RICHARDS

ELLEN ALLIEN

BPITCH CONTROL

Choreography
soundtrack from
versatile Berliner
Ellen Allien has made
6/10 driving techno and
electronica for more
thana decade, folding in guitars for a fresh
New Order-y pop sound on her last album.
Now the guitars take on a very different,
Earth-like slowness in this 45-minute piece
of music originally written for a dance
performance at the Pompidou Centre in
Paris. Her repetitive riffin the early section
teeters on the ponderous, and some of the
electronic production is mere promotional
muzak - but there are stunning passages
here, like the woodpigeon flute loop that
opens the record, or the sudden shift from
post-bop jazz to Vangelis stateliness on
the 20-minute mark.
BEN BEAUMONT-THOMAS

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 65

SUEDE

SUEDELTD/WARNER

Not quite back to their storming,
Britpop peak - but the signs are
encouraging. By Sharon O'Connell

AFTER SUCH A fall, it
seemed impossible.
That Suede - generally
acknowledged to have
launched Britpopin
1992 with debut single
“The Drowners", a
brilliantly brash, slo-
mo amalgam ofearly
Bowie and The Smiths
- might somehow
scramble back up the
cliff face and make another record was surely blue-
sky thinking of the most desperately hopeful kind.
The band, who parted ways in November of 2003,
had had a rocky run of it.

Theirlastalbum, 2002's A New Morning, had
signalled a fresh start for the newly clean Brett
Anderson - who'd spent 18 months in the grip
of crack cocaine addiction, his muse deserting
him by degrees - and a reboot for a band that had
watched the zeitgeist slipping out of focus and all
but their most devout fans withdrawing. As it turned
out, the “new morning" was more a final dusk.
Protracted recording sessions didn't help, but the
main problem was a war on two fronts: an uncertain
embrace of acoustic songcraft, and electric tracks
where their eccentricities became tired tropes.

There was a lot to prove, then, when Suede
reunited in 2010 for the Teenage Cancer Trust shows.
Ifnot exactly a triumphant return to their majestic
prime, this one-off was a reminder that that prime
was indeed quite something (they were, after all,
Melody Maker cover stars before they’d released
their first single), and it suggested that Suede’s
tank might not be empty yet. It also served as
areintroduction, paving the way for – could it
really happen? - a new Suede album. Anderson
announced exactly that in September of 2012, just

7/10

66 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

over a year after first mentioning the possibility
ofasixth studio LP with the qualification that
"nothing would see the light of day unless I
was really, really excited about it.” Bloodsports
presumably fills that brief.

Produced by Ed Buller, who worked on their first
three LPs and tagged by Anderson as “a cross
between bits of Dog Man Star and bits of Coming
Up", it prompts a sigh of relief, if not wild cheering.
Suede were caught between a rock and a hard place;
while acutely aware of what made them
great, they were not only sensibly
unwilling, but also unableto replicate
that youthful, amped-up glory
(Anderson is now 44). A New Morning,
however, proved the folly of
reinvention. Bloodsports, then, is a
recalibration. If it has any parallel,
it’s in the Manic Street Preachers’
Everything Must Go, a punched-up,
hook-heavy set more about overall
impact than detail anda calculated
counter to their previous record.
Anderson claims it's *about the endless
carnal game of love" and it tracks the
path ofa relationship from infatuation
through estrangement to break-up. Accordingly,
much of it has a widescreen, (melo)dramatic wallop
and none of the songs serve Suede's comeback too
shabbily. “For The Strangers”, “Sabotage” and “It
Starts And Ends With You” are unremarkable

Brett Anderson

Did you feel like there was а lot
at stake with Bloodsports?
{. There was a huge amount. What

ICP, Brussels
Produced by:

(synthesisers)

was at stake was rescuing the
reputation of Suede, really. We
probably shouldn't have released
that last album; we did the thing we'd always said
we'd avoid - releasing a record just to go on tour.
It wasn't released with the joy and passion with
which records should be released.

›

What were you aiming at sonically with this LP?
We weretryingto find that sweet spot between
feeling like Suede and feeling fresh, which is a

Recorded at: Sarm
Studios, Londonand

Personnel: Brett
Anderson (vocals),
Richard Oakes
(guitars), Mat Osman
(bass), Simon Gilbert
(drums), Neil Codling

hybrids of consensual, grown-up rock that drag
their heels in terms of contemporaneity (U2, Keane,
The Killers) but they push the big-picture buttons
effectively enough. Lyrics, though, arestilla
sticking point. Anderson has long since dropped his
Cockney affectations, and he’s no longer seduced
by the breath-taking modernity of cigarettes, neon
and magazines, but he still struggles with poetic
resonance. Analogies are uniformly limited to one
thing being “like” another and some metaphors
simply don’t ring true. Does any
telephone really emit “a brittle sigh”,
as is described in “What Are You Not
Telling Me”?

There’s a territory-reclaiming
trifecta, though, that pushes Suede
through. “Barriers” is a powerful
opening salvo, its clarion sweeps of
guitar underpinned by Blondie’s
turbo-charged rhythms and pumped
up with '8os cliff-top dynamics. The
darkly insistent “Snowblind” easily
matches it, as does “Hit Me”, an
irresistible, glammed-up stomp that
hints at “Sweet Child О” Mine” and is
bound to do the indie-disco business
from Brighton to Wick.

Bloodsports may not be quite as “furious” as
Anderson has claimed, but Suede’s renewed charge
is obvious. It’s a creditable step back into the ring
after years on the ropes.

Ed Buller

really interesting point on the spectrum. | don’t
think there's any point in coming back and trying
to reinvent the band, and | wanted it to sound
identifiably like a Suede record. But | didn't want
it to sound like self-parody or pastiche.

Was there ever a point where you thought
Suede were done for good?

There was a point about midway through the
new record where it wasn't really coming
together like | wanted it to. | did toy with the
idea of saying, "Let's not do this, and I'll carry
on making solo records." But that was to do with
trying to re-establish the band chemistry. We
almost approached this like we were a new band.
We didn't want to have this bullshit complacent
attitude: "We're Suede and whatever we do is
going to sound great."

INTERVIEW: SHARON O'CONNELL

AMOR DE DÍAS
The House At Sea

MERGE

Mood music for dusk
insolitude
Ontheir second album
together, The Clientele's
8/10 Alasdair MacLean and
Pipa’s Lupe Nüfiez-
Fernández paint a series of aural still-lives using
the wispy watercolour brush strokes of bossa
nova. Singing separately while interlocking
their Spanish guitars , the partners deftly
sustain a mood of languor through a dozen
tracks of varying tone and texture. These range
from “The House At Sea" and “Jean’s Waving”,
which possess the genteel romanticism of The
Clientele, and *Same Old Night", a dead ringer
for Chad & Jeremy circa '65, to “Days”, which
mounts a samba rhythm atop 4/4 rock
drumming, and “Viento Del Mar", a tactile
dreamscape pitting Nanez-Fernandez’s silky
whisper against gnarls of fuzzed-out guitars.
BUD SCOPPA

AUTECHRE
Exai
WARP

Glitch veterans tool

up for double-album

adventure

There was a worry

8/10 back in the mid-noughties

that Autechre might

disappear into arid digital abstraction,

but they’ve gently swerved back towards

rhythm - their own unstable version of it,

of course. Like Mark Fell, they’re at their best

when vibrating 4/4 beats off their axis to leave

savage funk, like something you might find

on a nightmarishly difficult level of the

Just Dance videogame. This two-hour epic

very occasionally rests on its laurels by

using sounds from past palettes, but is

characteristically rich and adventurous,

taking in smeared boom-bap and loping

Flying Lotus psych alongside the PhD

techno and breaks.

BEN BEAUMONT-THOMAS

AUTRE NE VEUT
Anxiety

MEXICAN SUMMER

Leftfield R&B auteur
smartens up
Theself-titled 2010 debut
from Brooklyn's Arthur
7/10 Ashin posited him as
asort of midpoint between
Ne-Yo and Ariel Pink, deconstructing the
modern R&B crooner and reassembling him
along outsider-pop lines. Anxiety, is anything
but lo-fi, though. Released on his former
flatmate Daniel ‘Oneohtrix Point Never’
Lopatin’s Software imprint, “Play By Play”
and “Ego Free Sex Free” drop Ashin’s
Prince-like croon amid lush, hyper-produced
backdrops of twinkling keyboard and
digi-drums. Ashin is по straightforward
loverman - on “Counting”, not that you'd
guess it, he'santicipating the death of his
grandmother - but Anxiety's blend of heaviness
and gloss is unexpectedly affecting.
LOUIS PATTISON

DEVENDRA
BANHART
Mala

NONESUCH
|
. Freakfolkgetsan

. electronic makeover

— Recordedona vintage
Tascam recorder, the

8/10 eighth album by the

Venezuelan-American kookster is a thrillingly

inventive blend of alt.rock, fingerpicking folk,

Latin flavours and – new this – electronic pop,

thelatter most startlingly showcased on *Your

Fine Petting Duck" which nonchalantly segues

from ’50s-style doo-wop to a sweaty Teutonic

dance number. Elsewhere the mood veers

between menace - “I can't keep myself from

evil", Banhartintonesin *Taurobolium" -

and a goofy mischief best demonstrated

on the track “Never Seen Such Good Things"

in which he remarks: "If we ever make

sweet love again, I'm sure that it will be

quite disgusting."

FIONA STURGES

REVELATIONS

Devendra Banhart’s reinvention

> “Unpopular pop” is how the Venezuelan-
American singer Devendra Banhart describes
what he does. “A lot of people see me asa
folk artist, this barefoot hippy guy, and I’m
happy to be included in that section in a record
store, but | don't think it applies anymore. The
criteria would be acoustic guitar and singing,
and there's notalot of that on this record."
It'strue that Mala, Banhart's eighth LP,
comes with an expansive musical palette,
drawing on samba, reggae, psych soul and,
most unexpectedly, dance and synth-pop.
"There are sounds that | never expected to
find in there,“ he reflects. “| created a studio
right behind the apartment was renting in
LA, and soundproofed it myself. | didn't do a
great job because we ended up accidentally
recording birdsong. So these seemingly
digital sounds are organic in origin; what
sounds like a synth is actually a bird."
Banhart's lyrics can be equally surprising.
"Your Fine Petting Duck" finds him warning off
an ex looking to reunite with him by reminding
her how badly he behaved. “In reality I’ve
never hada girl say ‘l'Il take you баск’, Banhart
says. "Rarely is a song autobiographical for
me. | think straightforward love songs have
been done. | want to look at the dark side, to
celebrate the mess."
FIONA STURGES

New Albums

BLANCHE
BLANCHE
BLANCHE

Wooden Ball

NNA TAPES

Alien pop insanity
| from Vermont duo
6/10 It'seasy to тоск
Brattleboro, Vermont's
Zach Phillips and Sarah Smith: this is their
eighth album since 2010, which buries
the comparatively mainstream, Fiery
Furnaces-meets-Ariel Pink burble of 2012's
Wink With Both Eyes beneath gnashing
analogue synthesisers last heard on Oingo
Boingo's *Only A Lad". Chastising hipsters on
"TED Talks" isa bit rich when it sounds like
toddlers loose in the Moog showroom, but for
every bout of exasperating silliness, they ply
charming, cryptic ragtime ditties that recall
The Magnetic Fields, and pervert pop vocal
interplay with aplomb. They could probably
be brilliant, but it's unlikely they want to be.
LAURA SNAPES

BLANK REALM
Go Easy

FIRE

Australians psych-
rocking with the
best ofthem
This Aussie four-piece —
8/10 three siblings, Daniel,
Luke and Sarah Spencer,
plus Luke Walsh - have been around for a
while, but Go Easyis their biggest statement
yet. A cracking selection of scuzzy, fuzzy,
psych-rock songs that recall Royal Trux and
Sonic Youth, Go Easy alternates between gonzo
skronk-rock (“Acting Strange", in which Sarah
boasts “Guess I’ve been acting kind of strange"
against a curtain of feedback, fuzz and two-
note guitar solos) and the more gentle but
seemingly never-ending “Cleaning Up My
Mess”. There’s also room for experimental
oddities like the percussion-filled “The
Crackle Part 2” and Fall-style ravers like
“Pendulum Swing”.
PETER WATTS

` Charles Bradley сере»

RADLEY
Victim Of Love

DAPTONE

Sixtysomething soul

тап onscreamingly
0 good form

7/10 PBradley's 2011 debut album
No Time For Dreaming

was the kind of old-school testifying and
retro grooves one might expect from a man
who'd previously worked as a James Brown
impersonator. Victim Of Love again mines rich
seams of bygone soul, but on a slightly broader
canvas. “You Put The Flame On It" fizzes and
finger-snaps like the best of Sam & Dave,
“Where Do We Go From Here" takes its cue from
Super Fly-era Curtis Mayfield, and "Confusion"
detours into George Clinton space funk. A
couple of the more freeform screamers may be
a holler too far for some ears, but there's no
denying the passion and power of Bradley's
formidable lungs.
TERRYSTAUNTON

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 67

DAVID McLISTER, TED BARRON

New Albums

AMERICANA

WU {Кыш 1.

че М "XD

EMMYLOU HARRIS
& RODNEY CROWELL

Old Yellow Moon nonesucu

Acollaboration at once overdue, and worth the wait

This album has been an unrealised ambition for Harris and Crowell
since 1974, when Harris was choosing tracks for her solo debut,
Pieces Of The Sky. The producer overseeing Pieces..., Brian Ahern,
played Harris a track by budding Texan songwriter Rodney Crowell.
It was called “Bluebird Wine", and it became the album opener.
“Bluebird Wine" is also the eighth track on the Brian Ahern-

8/ 1 О produced Old Yellow Moon. It's not quite as purchasers of Pieces...

will remember it. Crowell has taken the lead vocal back and tinkered

with thelyrics, turning the sloshed youthful idlers depicted in the original into more purposeful,
middle-aged workaholics. This revision is one of the more obvious manifestations of a theme that
percolates gently throughout Old Yellow Moon, of attempting to apply the lessons learnt to the time

thereis left. Old Yellow Moon is not, however, a sombre anticipation of mortality akin to the American

Recordings series of Crowell’s one-time father-in-law Johnny Cash. The general tone of Old Yellow
Moonis of faintly rueful happiness at being here, doing this. The opening track, thesubtly swinging
"Hanging Up My Heart", first appeared on the Crowell-produced cash-in album Sissy Spacek made
after her turn as Loretta Lynn in Coalminer's Daughter. The originalis an iteration of a well-worn
country template: the too-many-times-bitten Romeo/Juliet announcing that they can't be bothered
anymore. In these two well-weathered voices — a compliment — it sounds like relief at having grown
too old for all that nonsense. Similar redemption is wrung from a stately version of Allen Reynolds’
“Dreaming My Dreams"; Crowell's “Here We Are" executes the same sort of metamorphosis. This
first appeared on George Jones' 1979 duets album My Very Special Guests, sung by Jones and Harris,
a weary waltz of on/off lovers who've resigned themselves to a semi-grateful collapse into each

other's arms. The Old Yellow Moon version is recalibrated asa slightly gloating acknowledgement of

the terrible disadvantage suffered by the young: they don't have any old friends. ANDREW MUELLER

>» Some tasty new
releases on the
horizon. April sees
Steve Earle (left),
aided by both The
Dukes and Duchesses,
issue The Low Highway
on New West. A "road
record" co-produced
by longtime cohort Ray Kennedy, three of
the songs were originally written for Earle-
starring HBO drama, Treme. Also due that
month is the much-anticipated third album
from Uncut-endorsed LA quartet, Dawes.
Stories Don't Endis the first release on the
band's own HUB label and a preview of two
new tunes, including lead-off single “From
A Window Seat”, is on dawestheband.com.

Meanwhile, on the back of last year’s
George'n'Tammy-invoking minor classic
How Do You Plead?, real-life partners

68 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

THE AMERICANA ROUND-UP

Michael Weston King and Lou Dalgleish
returnas My Darling Clementine.
Provisionally titled Unhappily Ever After,
the follow-up was recorded in Sheffield with
Richard Hawley producer Colin Elliot, with
Hawley’s band providing the backing. The
duo tour the UK with Ricky Ross in April.

Guesting on My Darling Clementine’s LP
is Texas’ Jewish cowboy Kinky Friedman,
who also launches in-concert LP Live From
Woodstock and visits these shores in April
as part of ‘Kinky Friedman's Bi-Polar World
Tour’. Expect a healthy plug too for his new
book Roll Me Up And Smoke Me When I'm
Gone, co-written by Willie Nelson. And
there's still time to catch the wonderful
Caitlin Rose on her UK tour to promote
The Stand-In. The first week in March sees
her play Manchester, Glasgow and London,
including an in-store at Rough Trade East.
ROBHUGHES

rd CITY REIGN
Another Step

CAR BOOT RECORDS

Cocky Manc quartet

carry on where

Oasis left off

This Mancunian

5/10 four-piece have not looked

far for their influences,
filling their debut album with swaggering
Oasis-like anthems that drip youthful
confidence. They’re named, loosely, aftera
Ryan Adams song but while some of Adams’
introspection surfaces on “Ahead Of Ideas", a
soul-searcher that ends ina whiplash of strings
and cacophonous guitars, this is supremely
self-confident stuff. Guitars are the key
instrument, whether wielded brutally on “Out
In The Cold” or choppily on “Making Plans”,
but the heart-tugging strings and soaring
vocals of *Retaliate" show the band have a nose
for the sort of emotional balladry that could
bring real success.
PETERWATTS

CLINIC
Free Reign Il

DOMINO

Liverpool psych-punks
geta hallucinogenic
overhaul

і Late last year, Clinic
released their seventh
album, Free Reign,

a stew of tranced-out rock, psychedelia and
outsider jazz that, while sounding an awful
lot like Clinic, did little to advance their sound.
Its more intriguing moments were mixed by
Daniel Lopatin, aka synth guru Oneohtrix
Point Never - and it turns out they were just
tasters of a freakier alternate mix, released in
full here. Ade Blackburn's clenched-teeth vox
and the ticking drums remain intact, but
everything elseis set aswirl, drenched in echo
(“See-Saw II”) or zonked out to a fuggy blur
(“Sun And The Moon IT"). A band that long ago
perfected their sound, such collaborations
rather suit them.

LOUIS PATTISON
u— —ÀÜ T
MIKE COOLEY
The Fool On
Every Corner
COOLEY

Guns-and-whiskey-
drenched live set from
Drive-By Trucker

7/10 ^soneoftwo, maybe three,

principal songwriters in the

Drive-By Truckers going back to their founding,
Mike Cooley has hardly proven prolific. But the
songs he has written — heart-thumping, Southern-
fried character sketches — always pack a wallop,
as with “Loaded Gun In The Closet” on the group’s
breakthrough Decoration Day. The Fool On Every
Corneris his first tentative step into the solo realm,
a cadre of his finest DBTs compositions recast in
an intimate, finger-picking acoustic setting.
Adopting a bluesy drawl, merged with a bit of
Lefty Frizzell twang, Cooley gets at the heart and
grit of subtly shaded dramatic narratives like
“Pulaski” and “Carl Perkins Cadillac”. Bob Seger
and Charlie Rich bits are thrown in for fun.
LUKE TORN

THE CREOLE
CHOIR OF CUBA

Santiman
REAL WORLD

Polyglot passions
from the Buena Vista
socialism club

8/10 Akaleidoscopic explosion

of musical and linguistic

ingredients — Haitian Creole, French, Spanish,
African and Caribbean - this remarkable state-
sponsored choir earned huge acclaim with their
ravishing debut UK release Tande-La in 2010.
The members are all descended from Haitian
immigrants forcibly brought to Cuba as slaves, or
who fled subsequent invasions and dictators, a
heritage reflected in this exotic new collection of
Haitian freedom songs. Bookended by soaring,
celestial female voices, there are moments of deep
melancholy, like the sombre spiritual *Balaida
De Annaise". But the general mood is defiantly
upbeat, as on *Simbi", where African-style party
grooves meet Havana juke-joint swagger.
STEPHEN DALTON

DAKOTA SUITE

An Almost
Silent Life

GLITTERHOUSE

Womb-like missives
from loosely configured,
Leeds-based troupe
7/10 Those listeners already
familiar with the
recorded work of mainstay Chris Hooson
won't be alarmed to find that An Almost Silent
Life very much follows in the usual tradition
of Dakota Suite, the collective he's been
fronting since the late'9os. That is, anintense
set of sad-slow meditations that morph from
soft acoustic guitar and piano settings to a
distinct brand of hushed chamber music.
It's the kind of approach that makes
Tindersticks sound like a bunch of Club 30
reps, but compositions like “Last Flare
From A Desperate Shipwreck” prove that
Hooson has an unerring gift for turning
personal despair into quiet rapture.

ROB HUGHES
JM — —c
DAUGHTER
If You Leave
4AD

Moody, post-modern
shoegazers - minus
bass player

z Listening to the sweetly
6/10 anguished whispering of
Elena Tonra’s intense
confessionals, you can’t help but wonder how
she manages a trip to the corner shop, let alone
steps up to the mic. From its stark, single-word
song titles to its crepuscular, xx-styled
atmospherics and keening, Guthrie-like guitars,
this young trio’s debut picks up the baton of
bleak, post-dubstep songcraft and tiptoes
confidently off with it. There's an unwelcome
hintofFlorence Welch's swollen emotionalism
on “Tomorrow”, but the surging pop of “Touch”
is more successful, while the skeletal beauty
of “Smother” and a sweetly finger-picked
“Shallows” point to a future brighter than
Tonra's own outlook on love and life.
SHARON O'CONNELL

DEEP
FOREST

Deep Africa

UNIVERSAL

French synth boffin
seeks inspiration,
finds little
5/10 Since he playfully

blended electronica
with the chants of African pygmies back in
1994, Eric Mouquet has turned to other folk
traditions; Russian, South Seas and more. Here
he works with a range of singers including
Cameroon’s Blick Bassy and SA chanteuse
Zama Magadulela. Alas, while African music
has sped on since the mid-’90s, Mouquet
clings to his massive beats and vintage
synths, a Genesis-derived tsunami that
may work on his soundtracks but here simply
swamps the vocalists. Wasis Diop exerts
his baritone charms on “Wasis”, but most
other singers are lost. Why bother with the
French intermediary?
NEILSPENCER

HOW TO BUY...

DRIVE-BY TRUCKERS
AND RELATED SOLO WORKS

DRIVE-BY
TRUCKERS
Decoration Day 2003
One might as easily pick
The Big To-Do or The
Dirty South, but there's
no denying the epic
sweep of Decoration Day, the DBTs' mind-
boggling 2003 LP. From the manic, scrambled
desperation of "Sink Hole", Patterson Hood's
forlorn account of a farmer losing the family
farm, to Mike Cooley's chilling "Loaded Gun In
The Closet”, title self-explanatory, Decoration
Day is a country boy's Exile On Main St.

9/10

JASON ISBELL
Sirens Of The Ditch
2007

Only part of the DBTs
for six years, Alabaman
Isbell easily held his own
with the talented Hood/
Cooley songwriting team (see Decoration
Day's title cut). He's since cut atrio of strong
solo discs, but this one best showcases his
range: punchy power-pop, swampy Southern
R'n'B, country flavouring, luminous, late-night
blues. "Dress Blues", piercing the veil of war's
human costs, is majestic heartbreak.

8/10

PATTERSON HOOD
Heat Lightning
Rumbles in the
Distance 2012

Quietly nuanced where
the Truckers steamroll,
wearily contemplative
where the Truckers are brash, Hood's finest

solo disc finds him questioning everything, in
touch with his superlative storytelling muse via
explorations of early-onset decay and regret.
The spoken-word "(untold pretties)", raining
down imagistic personal ruminations, is sublime.
"You can only carry hellaround so long," he sings.

9/10

LUKE TORN

New Albums

DEPTFORD
GOTH
Life After

Defo
MEROK

å Laptop glumster’s
south bank showcase

7/10 Likea heartbroken Young
Marble Giants busking in

a deserted underpass, the debut album from
Suffolk-born auteur Daniel Woolhouse is very
much ofthe xx school of half-starved bedsit
minimalism. A one-time fine art student and
classroom assistant, Deptford Goth's ghost
R&B keens admiringly in the direction of Bon
Iver and Active Child, Woolhouse banshee-
wailing his own Greek chorus through the
ready-meal-for-one disco of *Union", and
constructing an exciting approximation
ofthe veal-crate funk of The Blue Nile
from life-support bleeps and cutlery on
“Bronze Age" — rave from somewhere
beyond the grave.
JIM WIRTH

DIDO

Girl Who Got
Away
RCA

Frustratingly bland
fourth album from
Ms Armstrong
5/10 Dido’s voice is the sonic
equivalent of Quorn,
bland enough to soak up whatever she’s
being marinated in. She works well with the
more pungent flavours of guest producers,
like Jeff Bhasker’s Massive Attack-style
drum loop on “Let Us Move On” (with rapper
Kendrick Lamar as the Eminem de nos jour),
or Greg Kurstin’s icy electronic soundscape
on “End Of Night”. Her folksy warble
sometimes resembles Sinéad O’Connor
(“No Freedom”) or Tracey Thorn (“Happy
New Year”), but it would be nice to see
Dido with more adventurous producers:
especially given the paucity of big brother
Rollo’s spice rack.
JOHN LEWIS

ڪڪ

MARY DILLON
North

BACK LANE

Member of Irish
folk dynasty returns
with tasteful solo
debut album
A former member

7/10 of the acclaimed Irish
folk band Déanta and older sister to the
better known Cara, Mary Dillon returns
from a 15-year hiatus with 10 songs largely
drawn from the traditional songbook. Her
clear, sweet voice is immaculate and the
stripped-back acoustic settings tasteful
toa fault, butifthe general air offlawlessness
frequently tips over into glossy politeness,
the highlights are nevertheless affecting
and impressive: the tearful anti-war
ballad “John Condon”, the lovelorn
“Knockashee”, a haunting “Edward On
Lough Erne Shore” and the closing,
a cappella “Ard Ti Chuain”.
GRAEME THOMSON

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 69

New Albums

T HELLE LT

JOHN
GRANT

BELLA UNION

Former Czar's emotionally raw
second - Sinéad sings backing.
By Garry Mulholland

JOHN GRANTIS nota
man of mystery. In the
interviews around the
release of his startling
2010 debut album
Queen Of Denmark, the
former leader of The
Czars talked with
bracing honesty about
his homosexuality, his

8/10 battle to overcome

addictions to booze

and drugs, his flirtations with suicide. He told us
his mordant love songs were about a guy named
Charlie. Then Grant topped all that by using an
appearance at last summer’s Meltdown in London
with friends Hercules And Love Affair to announce
to a shocked audience that he is HIV-positive.

But Pale Green Ghosts, which takes its name from
asong inspired by the Colorado drives young Grant
would take to new wave clubs along a Denver to
Boulder road lined by Russian olive trees, also
betrays the confidence Grant has taken from the
ecstatic reaction to the Midlake-produced Queen Of
Denmark. Still, the album's a big ask: specifically,
he'sasking still relatively new fans to travel with
him from bucolic Texas to his current creative base
of Reykjavik and the quintessentially European
electronica of GusGus' Biggi Veira, co-producer of
these 11 emotionally raw new songs.

Thelyrics are still dominated by witty, raging and
self-immolating open letters to the chronically
passive-aggressive Charlie, and the presence of
Midlake rhythm section McKenzie Smith and Paul
Alexander ensures that the album is roughly split
between Grant’s familiar, ’70s John Lennon-meets-
John Cale balladry and the kind of stark industrial
electro-pop that Grant was travelling along that
tree-lined road to dance to back in the '8os. Little did
heimagine, as he danced to *Mandinka", that its
maker Sinéad O'Connor would be providing
backing vocals on his records 25 years later, as
she does on three of the songs here.

Thetitle track opens the album and introduces
thelistener to Grant's new direction, his burnished
croon bathed in reverb over the burbling, stark and
discreetly disco analogue synth backing, coming on
somewhere between James Murphy and Clues-era
Robert Palmer. It's a style that works perfectly on
"Ernest Borgnine" where Grant addresses his health
in self-lacerating verses (“Now what did you expect/
You spent your life on your knees") while the chorus
echoes the debut album's *Sigourney Weaver";
asurreal juxtaposition and an escape into the
melodramas and removed realities of the movies
and actors Grant loves.

The most purely beautiful song, based largely on
acoustic guitar but enhanced by a ghostly Moog
solo, is *It Doesn't Matter To Him", where Grant
confesses that, despite a life of music, friends,
family and sobriety, the grief over lost love, the final
knowledge that "I am invisible to him", invades
every waking thought. But the song which, one
suspects, is destined to be Grant’s anthem is “GMF”,
another stately non-electronic ballad in which

70 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

Grant declares, in an irresistible,
unforgettable chorus, that he is "the
greatest motherfucker that you're ever
gonna meet". It's a masterpiece of
narcissism laced with bathos, as Grant
digs up Richard Burton's corpse to play
himin the inevitable movie, and
concludes, as he analyses the reasons
why he is not the king of the world, that
"I should have practiced my scales/I
should not be attracted to males".
Theabrupt changes between lush
vintage balladry and stark electro
ensure that Pale Green Ghosts is not
asinstantly cohesive as Queen Of
Denmark. But it is arguably more
satisfying, inits artistic courage, its

Q&A

John Grant

Why so much synthesiser on
Pale Green Ghosts? Because |
love synths more than anything in
the whole world. Is Vince Clarke
the prime influence? Well, |
listened the shit out of the two
Yazoo LPs when they came out. But | also love

New Order, the Cabs, Chris & Cosey and Yello.

Produced by:
Biggi Veira and
John Grant with
additional production
by Aron Þor Arnarsson
Recorded at:
Orgelsmiðjan Studio
and Syrland Studio,
Reykjavik; Elmwood
Studio, Dallas; and
Strongroom, London
Personnelincludes:
John Grant (vocals,
synth), Biggi Veira
(synth), Sinéad
O'Connor (bk vocals),
Pétur Hallgrimsson
(guitar), Jakob Smári
Magnusson (bass)
Arnar Omarsson
(drums), Aron bor
Arnarsson (percussion),
Paul Alexander (bass),
McKenzie Smith
(drums), Guómundur
Pétursson/Smári Tarfur
(acoustic guitar), Oskar
Gudjónsson (sax), Chris
Pemberton (piano)

refusal to meet expectations, and its
willingness to paint a brand new
picture ofa gay demi-monde where
the triumphs and tragedies have a
deeper resonance than simple
melodrama or camp.

It also lets us know that, whatever
Grant does next, it will surprise and
provoke because, even though its
maker is 43 years old, heis only on
the beginning of a journey to find
himself, in his art asin his troubled,
chaotic life. You never know, perhaps
album three will find someone to
accuse that isn't Charlie. The poor
guy's ears must be burnt to a crisp
by now.

sober, solfeltlike there was no excuse. To still go
out and make this horrible mistake was like, “Did

you have to add this to the fucking mess?"

The painful break-up songs concern the same

ex-lover that you were singing about on Queen
Of Denmark. But it seems like you're shouting at
abrick wall... Yeah. His motto was that he didn't
want to say things to hurt me so he didn't say
anything. Which | found much more hurtful than
being told to fuck off. It affected me so deeply as
it wasthe firstrelationship | experienced after

| got sober. It was raw for me because couldn't

just do a bunch of blow off some guy's hard cock.

"Ernest Borgnine" is the one song where you

directly address the fact you are HIV positive.
Did you meet him? Yes, and | was delighted. He
was Hollywood royalty. Amazing face and voice...
one of the greatest US character actors. The
verses deal with the fact | got HIV after | became

Inlast month's Uncut, Sinéad O'Connor said
that, if you ever decided to be straight, she was
"oiled up and ready for you". Tempted?

Ha! Absolutely. | would give it a whirl.

INTERVIEW: GARRY MULHOLLAND

DOBIE

We Will Not
Harm You
BIG DADA

Classy breakbeat
electronica with
deep roots

7/10 ^semi-legendary figure in

London club music circles,

Anthony “Dobie” Campbell has juggled a
successful career as a skate-scene photographer
with production and remix work for Soul II Soul,
Björk, London Posse, Massive Attack and more.
With а sleeve painting by Turner Prize-winner
Chris Ofili, Campbell’s first solo album in 15
years explores a broad spectrum of beat-driven
electronica, from jazzy acid-bleep collages like
“Stan Lee Is A Hero Of Mine" to the undulating
metallic funk of “The Chant” and the burly
techno-rock shudders of “Crunch Factor No 5”.
Lightly experimental and laced with playful
wit, this is quality gear from a seasoned
elder statesman.

STEPHEN DALTON

DOG BITE
Velvet Changes

CARPARK

Young Turks

graduate revives

early ’90s indie

After early sample-based
experiments, practicalities
of work as Washed Out’s
touring keyboardist forced Phil Jones aka Dog
Bite to write with his guitar. The murky results
are sometimes frustrating: melancholic opener
“Forever, Unite” seems weighed down by
budget technology when it should soar, while
the 4AD sparkle of “Paper Lungs” clashes
with the song’s detuned riffs, suggesting an
artist struggling between lo-fi roots and more
grandiose ambitions. “No Sharing”, however,
demonstrates an ear for dreamy art house
acts like AR Kane, and fans of Kurt Vile’s
stoned demeanour and Guided By Voices’
compact melodies will be rewarded for

their perseverance.

WYNDHAM WALLACE

DOLDRUMS

Lesser Evil
SOUTTERAIN TRANSMISSIONS

Debut from Portishead-
approved Montreal
scenester
Recorded largely ona
8/10 laptop borrowed from his
high-profile pal Grimes,
Lesser Evil proves that Eric “Airick” Woodhead’s
inventive take on Portishead’s “Chase The Tear”
(released as a B-side to the original) was no flash
in the pan. His debut as Doldrums follows two
EPs and is a joyous and colour-saturated,
experi-pop affair bulging with ideas and driven
bya frantic energy. Its unforced eccentricity
reflects its maker’s aim of “trying to get back to
this naive and pure, childish sensibility” and,
although there are echoes here of Panda Bear
and Bjork - especially on “She Is The Wave” -
they’re not oppressive. Doldrums’ frequently
multi-tracked falsetto is the icing on an
appealingly irregular cake.
SHARON O'CONNELL

MAXMILLION
DUNBAR
House Of Woo

RYNG INTL

Hypersensual
21st-Century dance
music to make NYC
9/10 proudagain

The fabulously named
Maxmillion Dunbar is one half of Beautiful
Swimmers, themselves part of a larger family
of New York dance music innovators (including
the L.I.E.S. label) who are taking their city's
predilection for deep house, stripping out the
generic brass sections, and injecting drama
and sex. His solo record is as glossy as J-pop,
colliding pan pipes and videogame blurts
with beautifully slipshod kick drums in tracks
that slip between UK garage, the white grooves
of Junior Boys, the new age pastures of
Oneohtrix Point Never and the cosmic funk
of Theo Parrish - the result is digital
psychedelia with eyedrop clarity.
BEN BEAUMONT-THOMAS

HOV IO'BUY--

RVNG INTL

Nuggets from NY dance’n’psych label

JUSTINE D

Rvng Prsnts Mx5
2007

The first success from
this leftfield label

was their mix series,
and this still-available
contribution from
dancefloor Zelig Justine D is a highlight. She
creates a dream-logic journey across the city's
underlit clubs, with unexpected figures like
Robert Fripp and Crass swimming between
industrial pop tracks, plus fragments of disco.

8/10

SUN ARAW,
MGEDDES
GENGRAS AND
THE CONGOS
Icon Give Thank
2012

The Calilo-fipsychers
е went to JA to jam with
The Congos for RVNG's fine collaboration
series FRKW YS - the result is an LP of blunted
majesty, muggy grooves aerated by The
Congos' harmonies. Other FRKW YS collisions
include Blues Control & Laraaji, ARP & Anthony
Moore, and Julianna Barwick & lkue Mori.

8/10

JULIA HOLTER
Ekstasis 2012

After releasing the
impressionistic
Tragedy, the LA-based
` songwriter movedto
RVNG for Ekstasis,
alooser mix of more
pop-focused material. Music-box innocence
and clarity chafe against echoing, unmoored
passages in aseries of bedroom symphonies
topped with Holter's opaque singing style. The
record's success led to a reissue by Domino, who
release her next album later this year.

7/10

BENBEAUMONT-THOMAS

New Albums

FICTION

The Big
Other

MOSHI MOSHI

London five-piece
play spot the influence
on pick’n’mix
7/10 indie-pop debut

Fiction's first album
is comprised of a handful of sweet things
shamelessly pilfered from the early '80s
pop pick’n’mix. “Careful” and “Step
Ahead” trade on the catchy eccentricity
of XTC, “Museum” is New Gold Dream meets
Lloyd Cole with an Afrobeat finish, while
singer James Howard has the gulping
gaucheness of Edwyn Collins. “Parting
Gesture”, meanwhile, could be Wild Beasts,
with a touch of The Blue Nile in its precipitous
bass swoop. It’s almost heroically unoriginal,
but if bright, rhythmically interesting
indie-pop with a knowing '80s glaze is your
bag, The Big Other delivers.
GRAEME THOMSON

———À
ТҮҮТҮҮҮШҮҮҮТҮ ord

MARKET
Slav To The Rhythm

DIVISION

\ | Norwegian prog-jazz
و‎ meets Balkan modalism

SLAY TO f RHYTHM uptown

8/10 Stian Carstensen is the
cruxin this long-running

quintet, a wildcard multi-instrumentalist who
tosses accordion, organ and pedal steel into the
mix. He's ably supported by ex-Supersilent
drummer Jarle Vespestad, on brutalist form
here, and Bulgarian sax/clarinettist Trifon
Trifonov. The title track’s wheeling, progressive
fusion - complete with slippy time changes —
spills into outré sub-metal bombast. Nils-Olav
Johansen's guitaris a little OTT at times, asif
he's having a Television-style duel with himself,
but the group's infectious eclecticism and
heavy manners are a winning combination:
these Farmers are not afraid to leave mud
on their boots.
ROB YOUNG

FOLLAKZOID
T

SACRED BONES

Santiago psych band
hope you like their
Neu! direction
Chile is home to several
7/10 ofthe world’s most
powerful telescopes, so
perhaps it's no surprise that its citizens feel a
little closer to the cosmos than most. Santiago's
Fóllakzoid - the name sounds as if it should
be the German for ‘asteroid’, but isn't – are
inveterate space-rockers; their record sleeves
are adorned by images of dark nebulae and
interstellar dust, although their musical
telescope is tilted firmly in the direction
ofearly-70s West Germany. Fóllakzoid's
viscous Krautrock shtick may shirk the
responsibility to seek out any genuinely
new worlds, but it's certainly effective,
especially when “Rivers” locks into a
potent, locomotive groove.
SAM RICHARDS

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 71

New Albums

JOHN
FULLBRIGHT
From The
Ground Up

BLUE DIRT

Cut-throat articulacy
from an Americana
newcomer

8/10 Although hailing from
Woody Guthrie's hometown of Okemah,
Oklahoma, 24-year-old Fullbright's immediate
musical lineage is closer to two other Johns,
Fogerty and Hiatt. From The Ground Up takes
a heartland rock template and imbues it with
tougher, weather-beaten elements asking big
questions (religious motifs pepper the album),
Fullbright's snarled vocals riding shotgun
alongside incendiary guitar grooves on *Gawd
Above" and "All The Time In The World". The
caustic worldview of the piano-led *Fat Man"
suggests a roadhouse Randy Newman, sinister
narrations from the dark side of smalltown
America heralding the arrival of a major talent.
TERRY STAUNTON

GOLDEN
GRRRLS

Golden
Grrrls
NIGHT SCHOOL

. Sweet, scuzzy
power-pop from
7/10 Scotland

The Glaswegian power
trio's debutis a fine thing of lo-fi harmonies,
neat hooks and simple guitars, offering that
classic Glasgow art-scene pop charm coated
with a thin layer of fuzz and semi-tuneless
vocals. “Paul Simon” is a fine example of
what they are about, a Teenage Fanclub-like
title attached to a sweetly lingering pseudo-
shambolic guitar solo, tit-tat drums and
three-part vocal harmonies. There's little
here that veers from that template but it's
largely done well, from the echoey “Think
Of The Ways" to the finely-tuned pop gem
"Take Your Time" and Smiths-y jangle of

*Time Goes Slow".
PETERWATTS
ج پڪ‎

GRAMME
Fascination
TUMMY TOUCH
Long-delayed debut
from original UK

punk-funk revivalists
"= Gramme were ahead of the
8/10 curve when they formed in
the mid-'90s, but they split
prematurely in 2000, just as James Murphy and
friends were about to launch a major punk-funk
revival. DJslike Trevor Jackson have continued
to champion their cause, and now Gramme are
picking up where they left off, with added
Chicago house thrust. Fascination bears
comparison with anything released on DFA
during the early 2000s (or Factory during the
early '8os for that matter), its rhythms as
ferociously controlled as Sam Lynham’s vocals
are gloriously haywire. Gramme may find
themselves out of time once again, but that's
no reason to overlook this unexpected,
exhilarating gem.

SAM RICHARDS

72 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

o" тет | HARD SKIN

е -
| ў On The Balls/
жасапып PY Do Birds
~ rfe 5c Suddenly Appear
" ` JT CLASSICS

LL | The world's top Oi! band
= ` andthe women who
lovethem
8/10 On The Balls is the foul-
mouthed but well-connected Hard Skin’s
third immaculate collection of Oi! pastiches
(genius moments: “Another Terrace Anthem”,
“That’s Bollocks Mate”). Why Do Birds Suddenly
Appear is the same songs re-recorded with a
variety of unlikely female singers: annoyed
atalocalloan shark, Joanna Newsom dusts
off her Crombie to “sort the fucker out”. Miki
Berenyi from Lush bellows out a special
constable as "a fucking fake PC". Beth Jeans
Houghton looks forward to a confrontation
with police at a Millwall game with the words
"we're gonna do them cunts”. Who fucking
wants some?
JIM WIRTH

REVELATIONS

How Millwall Oi! band Hard Skin
wooed Joanna Newsom...

THUD I ERS GIN
BOXING - AEROBICS

} Hard Skin's first two records - Hard Nuts
And Hard Cunts and Same Meat Different
Gravy resurrected Oi!, a genre sullied by
the extreme right. Nazi boneheads hate
this mysterious South London band, but
women love them, as the presence of several
independent-minded ladies on their new one
Why Do Birds Suddenly Appear attests.

But is sylvan harpie Joanna Newsom really
a fan of the band? "Kin LOVES us,” insists
singer Johnny Takeaway.

So how did they persuade her to take part?

"| didn't persuade anyone, mate,” says
co-conspirator Fat Bob. “They all came to
us -know what | mean?" Johnny Takeaway
adds: "Well, she owes us - let's say that. Giving
the game away would be out of order." With
'c' and ‘f’ words flying around left, right and

centre, did any of their lady guests complain
about the bad language? “Some moaned
there wasn't enough,” says Fat Bob. So what is
Oi!’s unique appeal for Hard Skin? “It’s a way
of life,” says Fat Bob. “People into dubstep
don’t live the life 24 hours a day - most of them
work as Twitter experts or in banks. Skinheads
do real Oi! jobs like working on the fruit'n'veg
stall or other stuff...”

JIM WIRTH

Ultraviolet
Catastrophe

MUSHROOM PILLOW

Spanish pranksters
plunder the shoegazing
LI 4 classics

6/10 It’s ironic that Madrid

quartet Hola A Todo

El Mundo should credit an apparently non-
existent poet, Roy Tiger Milton, for their
second album's lyrics, given their lack of fresh
ideas elsewhere. Ultraviolet Catastrophe's
antecedents are clearly evident: the swirling
effects of “To My Tender Love" lean heavily on
Kevin Shields’ glide guitar technique, while
"PH Return Over Gloria" offers pure M83 synth-
rock. But, though derivative, their thievery
is often executed with a confident swagger:
"Youth Time, Least Bother & Friends" hints at
Cocteau Twins given an unexpected chillwave
gloss, and “You Know We Found Words" fondly
recalls Electronic.
WYNDHAM WALLACE

ROBYN
HITCHCOCK
Love From

London
YEP ROC

The former Soft Boy's
blissful sounds of
the'60s

8/10 "Life is flowing through
us like a river/Soon there won't be nothing left,"
sings Robyn Hitchcock on *Death And Love",
but ifthat seems like a man whois feeling all
of his 60 years, Love From London finds
beauty and only beauty in the years ahead.
Marvelling on his 19th solo album (including
his work with the Egyptians and the Peter Buck-
featuring Venus 3) at how much love rather
than how little time he might have left,
Hitchcock whips up a monogamous rapture
with “Be Still”, “Strawberries Dress” and the
fuzzed-up “I Love You”. Like Bryan Ferry aglow
after the best afternoon stroll of his life, stylish
and uncharacteristically serene.
JIM WIRTH

KOEN
HOLTKAMP
Liquid Light Forms

BARGE

Yet more burbling synth-
drizzle, albeit more
stylish than most

In the wake of artists like
Emeralds and Oneohtrix
Point Never, the kosmiche/new age modular
synthscape is now the fashion du jour for
underground hipsterati. It’s already a fairly
limited and prescriptive aesthetic, so doing
something new within those confines is tough.
Holtkamp (perhaps better known as half of
Mountains) may not be breaking new ground
with Liquid Light Forms, but he has a much
stronger compositional sense than the
majority of his contemporaries, so even when
things coast a little – as they do for much of
the opening “Battenkill” - the endless ear-
trickle of analogica is never short of

texturally beguiling.

JON DALE

ШИЛ SS HURTS
Exile
RCA

Highly bombastic
second from gothic
Manchester duo
A pristinely manicured,
5/10 arched eyebrow saved
Hurts’ 2010 debut,
Happiness, from sounding like a gothy Savage
Garden. How else to endure lyrics like, “Stay
with me, Evelyn/Don't leave me with the
medicine"? Sadly, torrid synthesiser and
billowing melodrama make it impossible to see
any wry glances cast by Exile. On the title track
and “The Road", they sound impressively like
Queen doing Depeche Mode's Violator, but
schlock prevails, pierced by awkward attempts
to update their ’8os ballads with hip-hop beats
(“Sandman”) and revving EDM (“Blind”). What
romance they once had has been traded fora
masochistic air: The 50 Shades Of Grey film just
found its soundtrack, anyway.

LAURA SNAPES
|
KHALED
C’est La Vie
WRASSE

Algeria’s ‘king of rai’
drowns inthe
mainstream
Popular across continental
5/10 Europe, Khaled’s Arabic
pop has never found an
audience in the English-speaking world beyond
the WOMAD hardcore. The cynical recruitment
of producer RedOne (Lady Gaga/J.Lo) and faux-
epic dance anthems with a global-house beat
such as the title track aren't going to change
that. Like K’Naan’s 2010 World Cup theme song,
“Wavin’ Flag", C'est La Vie exudes a kind of
ersatz feel-good 'internationalism' which the
rest ofthe world seems to love but to which the
Anglo/American market is intractably resistant.
At his best, Khaled's soaring voice tags him
asthe Otis Redding of the Maghreb. But
RedOne's bombastic production smothers
any trace of soul.
NIGEL WILLIAMSON

KLAK TIK

The Servants
SAFETY FIRST

Anglo-Danish trio
K L A K T | K concoct lush pseudo-
€ Balkan folk-pop in Wales
Fronted by superbly named
8/10 Danish expat Soren Bonke
(ex-6 Day Riot), this multi-
national London trio earned glowing reviews for
the heart-stirring alt.folk shanties on their 2010
debut. Partly recorded in a Welsh village chapel,
this mellifluous sequel confirms Bonke’s
command of dreamy, harmony-weaving vocals

lightly clad in chamber-orchestra arrangements.

Sufjan Stevens, Beirut and Jeff Buckley remain
obviously ancestors, but Klak Tik lean towards
playfully experimental terrain on “Fire Souls”,
with its mournfully mechanical shuffle, and
“Landing Party”, whose brash Balkan-brass
fanfares implode into brooding self-doubt
midway through. Lovely stuff and proof that

pastoral reveries need not always be lightweight.

STEPHEN DALTON

THE KNIFE

Shaking The
Habitual

RABID/BRILLE/MUTE

Swedish siblings'
dystopian techno makes
a grab for the throat
ОЛО Shaking The Habitual
sounds like it was recorded
on the brink ofa panic attack. Its ‘political
hymns’ are laminated with sampled bedsprings
and Olof Dreijer’s hectic drum programming:
“Full Of Fire” is a barrage of grotesque gamelan,
ultraviolent electro and industrial-strength
synths doused in acid colours. Karin Dreijer
Andersson possesses one of the most distinctive
Scandinavian voices since Björk: glottal babble
on “Networking”; gender-ambiguous in the
beatless “A Cherry On Top”. It’s no accident two
feedback miniatures are named “Oryx” and
“Crake”, for - asin Margaret Atwood's
dystopian fiction - this duo's songs are genetic
pop mutations, scampering out of control.
ROB YOUNG

THE
MALINGERERS
The Lonely Years

FAT & BULBOUS

Western-flavoured
country blues from
the east of England
7/10 Whenlooking for a
hotbed of Americana-
fuelled hoe-downs, East Anglia wouldn't be
anywhere near the top of most tourists' list
of destinations, but it's home to the rustic,
ramshackle Malingerers. Taking their lead
from The Band, via more folk/blues influences
like Leadbelly and Woody Guthrie, brothers
Kevin and Craig Murphy peddle tales of
financial hardship (“The Optimist") and
sleepless nights (“Drunken Angel"), the
former's vocal growl underpinned by the
latter's plaintive harmonica. The musical
tones may be informed by the wide open
spaces ofthe Southern US, but the lyrics offer
aliberal helping of good old British cynicism.

TERRY STAUNTON

| STEVE MASON

Monkey Minds In
The Devil's Time

DOUBLE SIX

Beta Band mainman
finally makes his

1*9 masterpiece
9/10 Eight years of personal
and musical frustration
for Mason since The Beta Band split have
been poured into Monkey Minds..., an album
so full of ideas, political anger and great
tunes that it resembles the classic album that
The Beta Band promised but never quite made.
Featuring nine sparse, stunning, bass-driven
songs interspersed with eleven short, iPod-
defying links, it sees Mason's sad, warm voice
tapping into psychedelia, gospel, funk, dub,
house and rap, and reaching a peak of anti-
establishment fury on the anthemic “Fight
Them Back" (“A fist, a boot and a baseball
bat"). A soulful, adventurous, state-of-the-
nation classic.
GARRY MULHOLLAND

Е +

New Albums

MATMOS

The Marriage
Of True Minds

THRILL JOCKEY

American pop-concréte
duo, busy reading
your mind

7/10 Telepathy is the conceptual

bait on which The Marriage

Of True Minds twitches, with Matmos’ Drew
Daniel attempting to project ‘the concept of
the new Matmos record’ directly into the
minds of participants in the group’s Ganzfeld
experiments. The resulting responses are the
backbone of an album typically cryptic in
outlook - techno, metal, sidereal electronics,
Foley soundwork and clipped, dirty funk all
pass by, your ears complicit in the growing
confusion. Matmos' compositional nous
places all of these pieces into ‘forced cohesion’,
letting the constituent parts speak to and
with each other, whether contiguous or not.
Gloriously polyglot.
JON DALE

THE MEN

New Moon
SACRED BONES

Tag-avoidance tactics
employed again on
noisy fourth
In contrast to their
& /1 О no-nonsense name,

Brooklyn quartet The Men
have always been difficult to pin down, having
thrown a wild switcheroo with each of their
three albums to date. Punk, post-hardcore,
Krautrock, doo wop, country and surf rock have
allserved their purpose, and now New Moon,
which shines no more light on their cheerfully
messed-up aesthetic. It's a muscle-bound
charge through recent(-ish) history (Hüsker
Dü's poppier moments, Lee Ranaldo's songs for
Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr) that makes you think
you have it nailed, but the dusty Dylanisms of
"Bird Song" and closing psychedelic freak-out
"Supermoon" confuse the picture. Cohesion,
The Men have clearly decided, is not their bag.
SHARON O'CONNELL

GURF MORLIX
Finds The

Present Tense
ROOTBALL

Sad bastard deluxe:
Quirky Texas guitarist's
eighth solo disc

8/10 Longtime guitarist to the

stars (Lucinda Williams,

Warren Zevon), Gurf Morlix has quietly
amassed a substantial solo career alongside
myriad production and sideman duties.
Morlix’s follow-up to last year’s heartfelt Blaze
Foley tribute is a dark, dank country/blues song
cycle - think a rootsier Tom Waits — inhabiting
the shadows of pain and desperation. His
pained semi-whisper winds through desire,
suspicion and frustration — in other words,
pure desolation - to get at one simple truth:
we're all trapped like rats. “Bang Bang Bang",
a prophetic meditation on guns hewing tosome
tangential Basement Tapes vibes, and the
understated title track, particularly glow.
LUKE TORN

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 73

New Albums

LAURA MVULA
Sing To The Moon

RCA VICTOR

Elegant (if stiff) classical
pop by Brit-nominated
newcomer
The last soul record this
6/10 ambitious was Janelle
Monae’s 2010 opus, The
ArchAndroid. With its theatrical, sometimes
brilliantly maximalist palette, Mvula’s debut
is almost as dazzling, but similarly lacking in
human warmth - when it's said to explore
"painful, deep" emotions. Kudos to the
Birmingham composer's arranging skills; the
Gershwin-ready palette of *Like The Morning
Dew" and “Flying Without You" brings Mvula
to life, eliciting wryness and elation in an
otherwise serious vocal turn. The sparser
moments are undoubtedly tender, but the
reverential glow soon dims, and the clichéd
cries of empowerment don't help. It sounds
celestial, though Mvula's a touch stern.
LAURA SNAPES

KATE NASH
Girl Talk

HAVE 10P

Chart-topping

BRIT School hellion
plumbs more

hidden depths
Pigeonholed as Lily Allen
2.0 following 2007's No 1
success Made Of Bricks, Kate Nash was mauled
for ditching the script for the follow-up, 2010's
My Best Friend Is You, so it’s to the 25-year-old’s
immense credit that Girl Talk is wilder and
more ungainly still. “I change all the time, so
give me space,” she bellows on “Oh”, summing
uparecord which veers between the riot grrl
righteousness of “All Talk" and “Rap For
Rejection” and dispatches from the Harrow
wing of hell, like the a cappella closer
“Lullaby For An Insomniac”. Unvarnished
and unpredictable, then, but in the grand
Slits/Raincoats tradition, Nash is no-one's

little girl.
JIM WIRTH
[i —— 931

NIGHTLANDS
Oak Island
SECRETLY CANADIAN
Golden memories
from The War On
Drugs' bassist

NS „ The War On Drugs' Adam
7/1Q Granduciel evidently likes
to surround himself with
talented songwriters. First there was Kurt
Vile, and now there's David Hartley, whose
latest album as Nightlands summons the
ghosts of’70s AM radio to tell his story. His
skilful redeployment of MOR signifiers —
cod-Latin rhythms, funk-lite bass, radio
jingle harmonies and flourishes of muted
brass - aligns him with thelikes of The High
Llamas and Gayngs, although Hartley
multitracks his vocals to the point where
any suspicionof archness evaporates in a
quasi-psychedelic haze. Oak Island does for
Chicago what Panda Bear's Person Pitch did
for The Beach Boys.
SAM RICHARDS

ГД | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

NIGHT WORKS
Urban Heat Island

LOOSE LIPS

proves that recession
can be beautiful
Gabriel Stebbing was
8/10 Joseph Mount’s right-
hand man in Metronomy
until 2009. His original project, Your Twenties,
appears to have been abandoned in favour
of Night Works, who take listeners on a
melancholic journey through the credit
crunch hangover soundtracked by a luscious
rebooting of sophisticated '80s synth-pop.
Stebbing's characters are noughties
hedonists counting the cost of partying on
credit, while his blend of analogue synths
and ‘real’ instruments do their best to revive
Thomas Dolby's creamy productions for
Prefab Sprout. But, like Metronomy, Night
Works successfully twist quirky old music
into enticing new shapes.
GARRY MULHOLLAND

REVELATIONS

NIGHTLANDS (aka Dave Hartley)
explains the “Philly vibe”

» From a distance, Philadelphia looks to be
home toa thriving dude-rock scene orbiting
around The War On Drugs - a band whose
membership has included, at one time or
another, Kurt Vile and Mike Zanghi of The
Violators, Mike Polizze of Birds Of Maya/
Purling Hiss, and Dave Hartley, who releases
his second solo album as Nightlands this
month. According to Hartley, though, at
ground level, things aren't so clear-cut.

"It's interesting that people from outside
have started to talk about this ‘Philly vibe’,
because you don't really think of it when
you're here,” he says. “There’s a lot going on
in Philadelphia, but it’s a segregated scene.
There could be a great band living a block away
from youthat you don't even know about."

Besides frontman Adam Granduciel, bassist
Hartley is the longest-serving member of The
War On Drugs, having been recruited circa
2005. “Adam and | used to work together at
this housing company in West Philly. We'd go
around old apartments that fraternity dudes
lived in and remove all the trash. It was kind of
a demeaning job, but we became friends and
talked about music all the time. He gave me
a CD-R and was like, ‘I’m starting up this band,
I’d love you to play bass.’ And it’s been an
interesting journey from there."

SAM RICHARDS

Former Metronomy man

= Б | 180
ROUGH TRADE

Confident punk-pop
first; Pulp's Steve
Mackey produces
TheLibertines, Arctic
Monkeys, The Vaccines
and even The View have
all had the *UK Strokes" epithet attached to
them with varying degrees of accuracy and
desperation, but for better or worse, London
quartet Palma Violets might find it sticks. Their
debut reveals a talent for taut, punkish, pivot-
on-a-penny songs with the kind of clamorous
energy that cemented their live reputation before
they'd even recorded a note. “Best Of Friends”
might bea raucous shout-along in the Vaccines
vein and co-vocalist Sam Fryer manages a
more than passable Julian Casablancas
impersonation, but there's individualised
smarts in their retroism, too, as theringing
melodrama of *Chicken Dippers" attests.

SHARON O'CONNELL
چ‎
PEDALJETS
PEDAL TS What's In Between
ELECTRIC MOTH
| First albumin 24
years from Kansas
City'sanswerto
The Replacements
8/10 Pedaljets' 1988 debut
Today Today was an

undersung gem of pre-grunge US '80s rock.
The band reconvened, with Phil Malinowski
replacing original guitarist Phil Wade, in
2006. Their salvoes of high-powered melodic
punk, laced with Beatles harmonies (the
dazed and lovely *Some Kind Of One"),
prove affirmative and energising with
hard-won wisdom at the core. Embattled
and combative on "Terra Nova", offering
amasterclass in curdled sarcasm on the
belligerent “Conversations”, Mike Allmayer’s
brand of hangdog dirty realism combines
potency and killer riffs in equal measure.

A belated but timely return.

GAVIN MARTIN

PHOSPHORESCENT
Muchacho

DEAD OCEANS

Alabama songwriter
confronts personal
demons ina flurry of
synth and pedal steel

8/10 Matthew Houck - aka

Phosphorescent - has

followed 2010's country-rock homage Here's To
Taking It Easy with an equally magnificent beast,
mixing country jams with claustrophobic
electronica and mournful Mariachi horns to
create a beautiful but discomforting album.
"Ride On/Ride Out" boasts keyboard squalls
and alolloping 808 drumbeat, while songs like
the swaggering “A Charm/A Blade" exudea sort
of schizophrenia, part euphoric escapism, part
self-hating solipsism. “I’ve been fucked up, and
I've been a fool," he admits in his artfully
cracked and lonesome voice on *Muchacho's
Tune", asimple ballad that most clearly outlines
the album's theme of desperate redemption.
PETER WATTS

MTT

EDW YN
COLLINS

AED

Less is infinitely more for
the man who invented indie.
By Jim Wirth

"I HAVE BEEN a rover,
Ihave walked alone,"
quavers Edwyn
Collins, closing his
second record since
suffering two serious
strokes in 2005 with an
incongruous rendition
of Rod McKuen's
` *Love's Been Good To
7/10 Me”. It’s the sort of last-
orders warhorse that
the floppy-fringed Collins might have referenced
obliquely in his Orange Juice pomp as he stalked the
margins between the classic and the kitschy in a
Davy Crockett hat. Here, though - backed by an
acoustic guitar and what sounds like a Joe Meek
theramin whine - he throws everything he has at it,
battling to hold on as his voice cracks around the
high notes. You're waiting for the twist - the wink
and the knowing grin — and, as with the rest of
Understated, there really isn't one.

Those bewitched by the playful Edwyn Collins
of *You Can't Hide Your Love Forever" or the ironic
subversions of his Britpop-era second wind might
find Understated hard going. Musically, it is
business as usual - out-on-the-floor, stack-heeled
indie stompers all the way - but if 2010's stark Losing
Sleep was a little on the abrupt side, this is more
concise still.

Collins has recovered his vocabulary since his
strokes (at one stage, his only four coherent phrases
were “yes”, “no”, “Grace Maxwell" - the name of
his wife and manager — and “the possibilities are
endless") but has ruthlessly streamlined his
songwriting lexicon. “My lyrics are now simple —
backward, maybe,” he said. “They used to be very
flowery. Now they're direct and focused and
repetitious and precise."

Hecan say that again, and if Understated is
anything to go by, he will. For hereis a record where
economy - oflanguage, of ideas - is a virtue.
Having struggled for life, the simple act of being
is mined relentlessly for subject matter, but amid
Collins' drive to document simple, universal
truths, the tiny flourishes illuminate the one-time
draftsman's craftsmanship; the life-or-death
double-entendre of “Dilemma”’s refrain, “that’s me
all over”; the deadpan Otis Redding lift of “I’ve got
sunshine on a cloudy day" on “Baby Jean”; the
syntactical twists that stretch “the question of what
you do/What you see are integral to life in my point of
view” over four lines in uptempo stomper “Carry
On, Carry On”.

What epiphanies that come, meanwhile, are
elegantly undersold. He measures his pop career
matter-of-factly on “31 Years” and acknowledges his
teenage days asa graphic artist with the Glasgow
Parks Department on the title track, breaking into
what seems like a torrent of emotion by comparison
on “Forsooth” — a classic Collins word if ever there
was one - as he enjoys a lazy morning around the
house. “I'm so happy to be alive,” he repeats over a
mesmeric Velvet Underground buzz, descending

orga nns 1m m t

{ "

Produced by: Edwyn
Collins & Seb Lewsley
Recorded in: West
Heath Studios, London
Personnel: Edwyn
Collins (vocals), Barrie

Cadogan (guitar, bass),

into what comes close to a Van
Morrison-circa-Astral Weeks rapture
with the reiterated phrase “I feel alive
and I feelreborn”.

Given the brisk manner in which he
documents his life elsewhere (“Back to
life, back to hope,” on the cheery “Too
Bad (That's Sad)" - “to and fro, back to
work" on the smoky "It's A Reason"),
it’s an unexpectedly cathartic moment, all the
more so as heis not one given to gush. For all of his
reputation as a jangly romantic - Jonathan Richman
with the sappy swapped for savvy - Collinsis

Edwyn Collins

(

Why "Understated"?

Words pop into my head, single words, then | try
to bend them into a song. Understated, hmmm,
let's see, an interesting idea. My career, perhaps?
But no, I’m not at all understated! I’m a show-off.

You sound like a very positive
person... a fair assessment?
It's fair, certainly. | wake up in
a cheerful mood every day,
because | have a great life.

I'm lucky, | guess. | feel it.

"Forsooth" is extraordinary: can you talk us
through it?
Obviously, it's a Velvets reference. But it's still all

James Walbourne
(guitar, vocals), Carwyn
Ellis (bass, guitar,
keyboards), Sean Read
(sax, piano, vocals),
David Ruffy (drums),
Paul Cook (drums)

asupremely controlled writer, even
his wordiest masterworks littered
with pomposity-busting asides and
obfuscatory single inverts.
Understated dispenses with all those
frills and curlicues, and if it does not
offer unbridled emotion, its quiet
determination strikes a dramatic
enough minor chord. “I’ve got music to
see me through/T' ve got art to ease the pain,” Collins
explains on “Baby Jean”, staking out the margins of
his new territory once more. No longer so clever
maybe, but indubitably wise.

mine. | like the chant feel to it. And ironically,
“I feel alive, | feel reborn." As opposed to
"Heroin..."

Has the process of writing songs changed since
your stroke?

Oh yes. Lyrically, more direct and to the point.
That's fine - | have no choice, and | like it. Music?

| can only play alittle now, but the notes and
chords flow easily enough in my brain. My
musician friends get my intent, no problem there.
| sing them the parts, choose effects, arrange
the instruments. We collaborate, it's brilliant.

“Love’s Been Good To Me" is an odd choice

of cover.

| used to sing it 10 years ago, acoustically. | love
Rod McKuen, and the Sinatra version. It's just
a beautiful song. Ten years ago, | loved to play
it on the guitar, especially.

INTERVIEW: JIM WIRTH

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 75

New Albums

CHELSEA
LIGHT
MOVING

Chelsea Light Moving

MATADOR

Rock's poet-noise iconoclast
debuts new underground
supergroup. By Jon Dale

SONIC YOUTH MAY or
may not have ended,
but Thurston Moore
doesn't seem to be
pausing too long for
bouts of reflection.
He's always seemed
likeatireless character
and instigator,
involved in multiple
7/ 1O projects, meet-ups,
noise blowouts, record
labels, curatorial projects, chapbook publications,
and the past year or so has been little different.
There's the teaching workshop gig (see panel below
for more details). There are the ongoing noise/improv
collaborations, including a recent duo with Chelsea
Light Moving drummer John Moloney, Caught On
Tape. There are the publishing houses: the Ecstatic
Peace Library and its associated Ecstatic Peace
Poetry Journal, and the smaller poetry imprint,
Flowers & Cream Press. And all this connects with
his ongoing romance with New York: when asked
about his connectedness with the lineage of ‘New
York School’ poets and creatives, Moore admits,
“with Chelsea Light Moving I feel like I want to
have the words of the city fly from my fretboard
and my teeth in a very direct and charged way.”

Chelsea Light Moving also appear to be on the
road a lot, floating from continent to continent.
They are, in a very real sense, a working band. The
individuals Moore has pulled together for Chelsea
Light Moving all movein similar circles, part of that
nebulous American underground that has housed
the New Weird America, free-folk and neo-psych
delirium. But the connective forces are even more
blasted and open-ended, aesthetically or
personnel-wise, than you'd expect. The group's
ranks include Samara Lubelski (bass), who has
released a handful of graceful baroque-pop
albums, but also a gorgeous drone duo with
Hototogisu’s Marcia Bassett, Sunday Night, Sunday
Afternoon; Keith Wood (guitar), who records
beautiful acid-folk as Hush Arbors; and of course,
the irrepressible Moloney, one of the heads of
Sunburned Hand Of The Man.

Not too much of that agrarian weirdness has really
worked its way into the 10 songs that make up the
group's debut album, admittedly. Moore is pretty
much whittling away at his peculiar vision of
songcraft here; many of these songs are modular,
piecing together constituent parts into odd
Frankensteins of rock anti-anthems. And while
Chelsea Light Moving is far from a simplistic repro of
Sonic Youth’s moves, it does sometimes illuminate
what Moore brought to that particular equation:
spindly, almost math-rock-y guitar interplay;
melodic turns that meander down byways; broad-
brush sweeps of heavy riffage; occasional bouts of
clumsy out-of-tuneness; and a weirdly brutish pop
heart, at times as willfully awkward yet compelling
as Mayo Thompson of The Red Krayola. Sometimes,

E = =a
CHELSE^ ' IGHT Mies

76 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

ia
м а
«г 7

®
`

fi;

“{

K »

da
a

‘ f ta.

0 Р,

^ Producer: none,
engineered by
Justin Pizzoferrato

you can hear Moore exploring the
songs as he goes, feeling out new
terrain, sometimes stumbling and
sometimes hitting the ace.
Unsurprisingly, it's not always
successful: that modular approach
goes seriously awry on "Alighted",
where every twist and turn feels less
agile and more forced than the last. But

Easthampton,
Massachusetts
Personnel: Thurston
Moore (guitar and
vocals), Samara

Recorded at: Sonelab,

working his poetic tongue over
arumbling, Rhys Chatham-esque
guitar pile-up.

Half way through "Empires Of
Time", Moore sings, in his by now
patented half-yowl/half-sigh, *We are
the third eye of rock and roll/We are the
third mind of rock and roll." Well, that's
alittle ambitious for a group on their

that doesn't happen too often. Chelsea
Light Moving are generally a heads-
down, fighting force, capable of
swinging with a Mastodon's gait —
"Groovy & Linda" is one of Moore's
most satisfyingly Neanderthal songs
yet (atleast, until that ungainly “don’t shoot"
hardcore coda); *Burroughs" pounds the floor,
with Moloney's primal thud corralling the group
into pulling out some of their most rock-reverent
moves; and “Mohawk” is gorgeous, with Moore

Q&A

Thurston Moore

guitar), John

Your music has always
referenced textual culture,
poetry, but Chelsea Light
Moving seems to make this most
explicit - “Frank O’Hara Hit”,
“Burroughs”... It may very

well be the fact that l've been on faculty at the
Summer Writing Workshop at the Jack Kerouac
School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa
University in Boulder Colorado the last few
years. Burroughs taught there quite a bit and

to be able to be in a place where he was active,

a school founded on Buddhist principles of

Lubelski (bass guitar),
Keith Wood (electric

Moloney (drums)

first run, pulled together out of
unlikely circumstances and yet to
fully find their feet as a fully working
entity. But Chelsea Light Moving
suggests there's plenty of space to
move around for Moore and his
cohorts. This new groupis neither a redux of
his Sonic Youth moves, nor a solo project with
sidekicks. Awkward moments or not, this
group moves as one. The next album might
well be the ticket.

engagement and founded by Allen Ginsberg
and Anne Waldman, has allowed me to not only
continue to investigate their world of alien
America perspective but become spiritually
immersed in their footsteps and fingerprints.

What other projects are you involved with

now -| know there's a collaborative album with
Moloney out on Feeding Tube... There are some
other improv recordings being released - a very
limited LP in benefit to Café OTO, that is a duo
with me and reeds-maestro Alex Ward. And live
recordings with Swedish free jazz sax demon Mats
Gustafsson and, hopefully, an amazing session
with prepared-guitar genius Bill Nace and jazz
sax legend Joe McPhee that'll blow yr mind, and
aguitar duo freakout with Nels Cline. And l'm set
torecord a duo CD with John Zorn soon! JONDALE

P
Homosapien
FELTE

Muscular, synth-pop
fourth from Aussie
shapeshifters
Australian trio PVT have
7/10 hadsignificant change
thrust upon them; first, a
name switch (from Pivot) enforced by a litigious
US band, and nowa label shift (from Warp). It's
the kind ofunsettlement that would do for many
bands, but PVTare nothing if not adaptable.
Homosapien sees an intriguing reinvention via
more conventional song structure, a focus on
Richard Pike's versatile vocals and the use of
vintage drum machines underpinning chilly
synths. Not that they've ditched idiosyncrasy -
PVTemerge as masters of the unlikely cut-and-
shut, most notably with *Cold Romance" (Michael

Hutchence fronts Kraftwerk) and *Casual Success"

(The Cure cut with QOTSA - and cowbells). Fans
may blench, but frankly, more fool them.
SHARON O'CONNELL

Izd adi TERRY REID

AR Live In London
s xU ME CADIZ
| T Barstool entertainment
E EE andphilosophising
from the great
English singer
7/10 !t'sonly recently that
Reid has been treating
UK fans to the sort of intimate club shows he's
been playing in his adopted American home
for decades. Ronnie Scott's was the perfect
setting in summer 2010 for this effectual
career resumé taking in the early, brattish
"Rich Kid Blues", the dreamy funk of *River"
and graceful “Seed Of Memory". Reid's
sympathetic London pick-up band, including
pedal-steel maestro BJ Cole, simmer away
nicely while Reid exercises almost disdainful
control of proceedings with his cheery
presence, mildly inebriated patter and
that rich, lived-in voice which can still soar
when it counts.

Р a ry & ата!"
AA" | " LONI JN

MICK HOUGHTON

JOSH RITTER

The Beast In
Its Tracks

YEP ROCK

Anunflinching diary
oflove lost from the
acclaimed Idaho
7/10 singer-songwriter
Josh Ritter's sixth album
took shape in the year after his divorce, and
he describes the songs as *rocksin the shoe,
hard little nuggets of spite, remorse and
happiness”. It’s a bold and obviously personal
collection of mood swings, from the rosy tint
of longing “A Certain Light” (shades of the
young Bob Dylan) to the anger of “Evil Eye”,
from the forward-looking optimism of
“Heart’s Ease” to the vengeful “Bonfire”.
Sparse instrumentation, with Ritter’s
deftly picked acoustic to the fore, keeps
the focus on the lyrics, the post-mortem
honesty of which amuse, astonish and
occasionally unsettle.
TERRY STAUNTON

JOSH ROUSE

The Happiness
Waltz РР

YEPROC

Delicate but confident
country-soul ninth
from tireless

7/10 American expatriot

One of the most consistent

songwriters around, Josh Rouse’s ninth album
isareturn to the sound that made 2003’s 1972
sucha gem. Although Rouse has been based
in Spain for eight years, there’s little of the
flamenco guitar that’s featured on recent
albums and he instead opts for a yearning,
nostalgic 1970s-hued country haze and lyrics
that reflect his primary concerns: family, home,
songwriting. That’s epitomised by gorgeous,
pedal steel-flecked opener “Julie (Come Out
Of The Rain)” and the beautiful, frail “Purple
And Beige”, while the subtle “The Ocean” is
typical of the album’s understated maturity
and charm.
PETER WATTS

mio) 1O BUY...

TERRY REID

The unsung hero of British vocalists

s1 Super Lungs:
2 The Complete
Studio Recordings
1966-1968 Emi, 2004
Rounds up Jaywalkers
flotsam and the Mickie
Most-produced Bang
Bang, You're Terry
Reid, and the immeasurably better Terry Reid
where the boy's vocals positively explode on
"Superlungs My Supergirl", while the tender
"July" and "Mayfly" display an emotional
maturity beyond his years. It was arare flop
for Most who Reidunwisely fell out with over
its unsanctioned release.

7/10

River ATLANTIC, 1973
Unable to record for
two years until Ahmet
Ertegun bought out
his contract with
Most, River blends
the initial looser and
funkier recordings
with resplendent guitarist David Lindley (until
Jackson Browne poached him), alongside
sparer, Latin-influenced songs like "River"
itself. Should have been Reid's Astral Weeks
but was mothballed instead.

8/10
ТИРА Seed Of Memory
ABC, 1976
A shamefully unsung,
graceful California rock
classic made possible
with help from fellow
Brit-abroad, Graham
Nash, a friend from the
Jaywalkers days. Reid's most poignant songs,
notably "Brave Awakening", "To Be Treated
Right” and the title track rival Neil Young's On
The Beachfor strung-out catharsis. Sod's law
struck again, the ABC label went bust along
with Reid's stuttering career.

9/10

MICK HOUGHTON

SECRET AFFAIRÉ

New Albums

SECRET
AFFAIR

Soho Dreams
I-SPY

Old-school mod
moves with a few
embellishments
6/10 Stillsporting many of
thesharp-suited musical
threads from their beginnings as figureheads
of the late’70s mod revival, the reformed
Secret Affair nonetheless stretch themselves
across a broader palette on Soho Dreams,
with mixed results. “Walk Away” and “Turn
Me On” will please the first-time-rounders
who stomped along to “Time For Action”,
while “In Our Time” enters the tougher rock
arena of Tommy-era The Whoand the horns
of “Love’s Unkind” dabble in Stax soul motifs.
Less successful are the forays into Simple
Minds-like grandeur, such as singer Ian Page’s
meandering ode to London nightlife on the
title track.
TERRY STAUNTON

HARPER SIMON

Division Street
PIAS

Melodic alt.rock

second from Paul’s son

If the folk-rock shtick

of Simon’s 2009 debut
7/10 (helmed by veteran Sounds

Of Silence producer Bob

Johnston) traded a little too heavily on family

history, the fizzing alt.rock of the follow-up

sounds like a determined effort to be his own

man. Co-produced by Tom Rothrock (Beck/

Elliott Smith) and assisted by various Strokes/

Wilco/Bright Eyes alumni, his soft voice still

betrays the paternal DNA, particularly on

“Just Like St Teresa”, the album’s gentlest

song. But elsewhere, on standout tracks

“Veteran’s Parade” and “Dixie Cleopatra”,

a gem-like pop melodicism reminiscent of

Smith circa “Son Of Sam"/Figure 8 is winningly

augmented with layers of clanging guitars

and droning synths.

NIGEL WILLIAMSON

SOLUS 3

Corner Of
The Dub

SOLUS3

Chamber prog group’s

Corner Of The World

album remixed,
8/10 thoroughly...

Stalking a slinky,
unlikely path between improvisation, dub
and modern classicism, Solus 3 are truly alaw
unto themselves. Here their second album
gets a vigorous make-over from cutting-edge
remixers. *Corner Of The World" gets two
rootsy mixes from Ethio-reggae star Dub
Colossus, *Unfold" has a well-named
‘Celestial Mix’ that majors on Julia Thornton's
trilling harp and Krupa's yearning vocals.
Krupa herself turns nine minutes of
"Monster Mori" into an absorbing shape-
shifter, “Porn Jam" goes atonal and Dr Das
serves "Lollardy" in drum'n'bass fashion.

A thriller.
NEIL SPENCER

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 77

New Albums

Rediscovered!

CRIME & THE CITY SOLUTION

American Twilight
MUTE

First new material in 20 years from post-punk doomsayers
Perhaps the most enduring document of Crime & The City
Solution is to be found in Wim Wenders’ 1987 film Wings Of
Desire. A sombre fantasy in which angels watch over the
inhabitants of West Berlin, it climaxes with the group - fronted
by snakish vocalist Simon Bonney, his sideman the exceptional
guitarist Rowland S Howard - perform their “Six Bells Chime”
witha holy intensity. Formed in Sydney in 1977, Crime & The
City Solution emerged from the same post-punk flux as The

Birthday Party. But never did they seem as at home as in Berlin, their apocalyptic punk-blues
an eerily perfect fit for this city of decadence and division.

The third, Berlin-based incarnation of Crime disintegrated in 1991, a year after fourth album
Paradise Discotheque. Bonney moved to LA, released two solo albums, and then... nothing.

“Deep and dark.
The good deep and
dark - that you only
get from being aged
in an oak casket.”

78 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

Nothing until 2011, when a new lineup sprung from the ashes.
Now operating out of Detroit, this incarnation brings together
old hands, such as violinist Bronwyn Adams, with new, if
familiar faces: drummer Jim White, also of the Dirty Three, and
David Eugene Edwards, formerly of 16 Horsepower.

Whatis initially startling is how easily they whip up some of
the old fire and brimstone. There is hurricane-force rock'n'roll
(“Goddess”), apocalyptic Mariachi (“My Love Takes Me
There”), Dionysian funk-rock (“Riven Man”). The gothic gospel
of “Domina” is areminder of Bonney’s exceptional, abject
lyricism. “Billowing sails... incision of your nails... wheals on the
skin...” he spouts, a preacher atop a decaying pulpit.

As the title suggests, this is a very American record. Perhaps
as Berlin felt in the 80s, Detroit feels now: a city of division,
albeit one with wounds inflicted by capitalism, not war.
American... is seldom better than its title track, searing swamp-
punk that recalls Grinderman in its diabolic abandon. Elegy for
a civilisation in decay, live it’s accompanied by a slideshow of
modern Detroit. Not a band tied to any one place, then. But
expert at locating something holy in the rubble.

LOUIS PATTISON

STEREOPHONICS

Graffiti On
The Train

STYLUS

Reflective, adventurous
eighth album from
Welsh stalwarts

7/10 Perhaps stirred by reaction

to 2009's Keep Calm And

Carry On, his band'slowest-charting album,
Kelly Jones has upped his game for this follow-
up. The wanderlust of the title track and the
melodically resplendent “Indian Summer” are
fruits of Springsteen-schooled maturity, with
David Arnold’s strings adding lustre and allure.
Jones’ considerable composing, guitar and
vocal strengths are marshalled effectively —
igniting fiery rocker “Catacomb” and the doom-
laden “In A Moment” with terse, thoughtful
lines. Add the impressively soulful closing
confessional “No-One’s Perfect”, and the
‘phonics’ long-bandied “band of the people”
status becomes much more than mere cliche.

GAVIN MARTIN

THE STROKES

Comedown Machine
ROUGH TRADE

1985 electropop action
from Julian Casablancas
and со

—3 Having delivered a debut
7/10 album that re-invented the
wheel for guysin leather
jackets, The Strokes have since spent their time
making cautious steps outside their comfort zone.
Comedown Machine, assuredly, is not another
record like that. Instead, it attempts to meld
guitars with '80s Europop much like Phoenix
have done, to the extent that single *One Way
Trigger" sounds like A-Ha. The experimentis
often successful, the Penguin Café Orchestra
rip *80s Comedown Machine" better than the
out-and-out garage rockers. It's the downbeat
“Welcome То Japan" though, that really
recaptures the band's cooler-than-thou vibe.
“I didn't really notice," Casablancas drawls,
*What kind of asshole drives a Lotus..."

JOHN ROBINSON

STORNOWAY

Tales From
Terra Firma
4AD

Not-so-difficult second
from the acceptable face
of Mumford-rock

Despite being nice middle-

7/10 class Oxford boys peddling a

sanitised simulacrum of Celtic-tinged folk-rock,
Stornoway have so far eluded both the huge
success and critical revulsion heaped on the
Mumfords. Perhaps this is due to the fact that their
surging rustic fantasias sound more natural,
favouring freewheeling arrangements and layered
harmonies over foot-stomping shanties. Awash
with plump brass, grainy mandolin and fuzzy-
warm electric piano, this solid second edges
deeper into Fleet Foxes territory with the
bittersweet lament “Farewell Appalachia” and
the majestic banjo-plucking ballad “A Bigger
Picture”. The double-edged curse of Mumford-
sized fame may yet land upon them.
STEPHEN DALTON

PAL HANSEN

TO KILL A KING

Cannibals With
Cutlery
CWC

just misses the spot
Hamlet-referencing
5/10 Londoners To Kill A
King (not to be confused
with New Jersey noise merchants To Kill The
King) are making a bid for the big time with
their first full-length LP full of expansive,
emotionally charged songs with huge, heart-
swelling choruses. Well, that’s the idea
anyway. There’s no doubting To Kill A
King’s musicianship, nor their potential
to be absolutely massive, but singer Ralph
Pelleymounter’s mid-Atlantic drawl is as
irksome as the abundant lyrical truisms,
as demonstrated on the title track in which
he declares “these are just fleeting moments,
pick the ones you like and hold on”. A career
asan agony uncle beckons.
FIONA STURGES

| TRESPASSERS
WILLIAM

Cast

| SAINT MARIE

Seattle duo wave
goodbye with classy
retrospective
6/10 Disbanding in early 2012

after more than 15 years
together, Seattle shoegazing dream-folk duo
Anna-Lynne Williams and Matt Brown
commemorate their tidy divorce with this mop-
up double-album of rare tracks and B-sides. The
career-spanning first discis the most agreeably
diverse, from sublime weepie *Tomorrow On
The Runway” tolysergic dronescape “Maybe A
Sad Song" via the naked desolation of *Never
You". Expanding the duo's 2009 swansong EP,
“The Natural Order Of Things", the second disc
features more sonic experimentation but fewer
strong tunes, though the trip-hop requiem
"Lives And Dies" and the avant-folk shuffle
"Catch Not Break" still twang the heartstrings.
STEPHEN DALTON

| WIDOWSPEAK

ЙБ

Almanac
CAPTURED TRACKS

Apocalyptic
pleasantness from
Brooklyn duo
Almanacis the second
6/10 album from Molly
Hamilton and Earl
Thomas, written lastsummer in a secluded
barn in New York State's Hudson River Valley
and composed as the pair contemplated the
changing ofthe seasons and predictions
about the end of the world. It's a quietly
moody collection, linking the more
contemplative end of shoegaze with the
expansive soundscapes of Ennio Morricone,
and all bound together by Hamilton's
gauzy croon, somewhat reminiscent of
Mazzy Star's Hope Sandoval. All of which
is pleasantly dreamy for a while, but
over the course of 40 minutes feels just
alittle insubstantial.
FIONA STURGES

WERE
HERE

WIRE

Change
Becomes Us
PINK FLAG

Practice makes perfect
for post-punk vets’
30-year-old song germs
8/10 Wiresigning to Harvest
inthelate'70s was
always weird: lean post-punks in the court of
progressive folk and ponderous psychedelia.
“Adore Your Island", a track on their 13th studio
album, exemplifies this perfectly, with jumpy
leaps between mellow verses and thrash
choruses. Like most of the material here, it was
left unfinished around 1980 and revived at
recent sessions at Rockfield Studios. New
guitarist Matthew Simms has refreshed Wire's
sound; the acoustic chug of *& Much Besides"
recalls the wafty space-rock of Fuxa. “Re-Invent
Your Second Wheel”’s lyrics are strings of letters
that may or may not be acronyms, making you
strain to decipher an uncrackable code.
ROB YOUNG

Stornoway

NEW

They dress like Edwardian polar explorers,
sport eccentric facial hair and sing landlocked
sea shanties awash with wistful bucolic
nostalgia. But do not confuse Oxford
four-piece Stornoway with any other hugely
successful folk-pop bands out there.

"We are not influenced by Mumford & Sons
at all," says Stornoway's singer, guitarist and
main songwriter Brian Briggs. "Overall we
take it a blessing when people compare us
because they are obviously riding such a huge
wave at the moment. In my opinion we do
something very different, but if we're getting
carried along by it, l'm not going to complain."

In 2010, Stornoway staked a modest claim in
the indie-folk goldrush with their fine debut
album, Beachcomber's Windowsill, released
onthe iconic 4AD label. Now they return
with the fuller, richer, warmer sequel, Tales
From Terra Firma, full of misty-eyed paeans
to widescreen Americana and windswept
Celtic landscapes. They may hail from Middle
England, but Stornoway would sound very
different if they were called “Swindon”.

“| love being in wild places," Briggs explains.
“My background before music was in wildlife
conservation, and | have a strong affinity for
the coast. Oxfordshire is about as tame and
manicured as you can get, so there is definitely a
sense of escapism in the songs." STEPHENDALTON

New Albums

THE WONDER
STUFF

Oh No It's...
The Wonder Stuff

IRL

Oh wow! Look at
: 'em now...
8/10 Seven years on from

their last album, and
with singer Miles Hunt the sole remaining
original member left in the lineup, the Stuffies
have effortlessly reconnected with the smart-
mouthed savvy pop rock of their purple period.
Uptempo and catchy at every turn, they've
rarely sounded so full of vigour, beit on the
sneer and stomp of “Oh No!”, the sweet folk
sway of “Friendly Company”, or the fiddle-
fuelled trippy psych hues of “Right Side Of
The Turf”, despatching memorable singalongs
with economy and wit. A second disc of
enthusiastic covers of hits by fellow Midlanders
(Dexys, Duran, Slade, etc) is an utterly
charming bonus.
TERRY STAUNTON

|. YOUNG DREAMS

| Between Places
MODULAR

California meets

Scandinavia in'60s

dream-pop homage

™ YoungDreamsisa

7/10 12-strong collective of
Bergen-based musicians

led by Matias Tellez (already an established

soloartist in Norway) brazenly in thrall to

The Beach Boys. Certainly, there's a distinct

“Sloop John В” flavour to opener “Footprints”,

complete with warm and winsome harmonies,

while the propulsive *Fog Of War" sounds

like Brian Wilson remixed by The Future

Sound Of London. What raises Between

Places above simple pastiche are the

electronic bursts, orchestral flourishes

and surges of pounding drums that pepper

the album, additions to the '60s-style Wall

Of Sound template that are as compelling

asthey are unexpected.
FIONA STURGES
SS
- .... YOUR MOVE,
77. RAINCLOUD
'„@. This ls What's Left
V Over From Nothing
i That’s Happened
Vu UN eus MOTIVE SOUND
saat basses cd 3 A tender-hearted
7/10 and charmingly
amateur debut

Three years in the making, Samuel Francis
Cain's debut calls upon the intelligently
rambling sounds of Broken Social Scene,
throwing in a little folk and post-rock for good
measure. Recorded in a Lincolnshire barn, with
Cain's plaintive wail recalling Norwegian cult
hero Moddi, there are plenty of lo-fi moments: a
child babbling through “Word Association”’s
skeletal, acoustic lament, the field recordings of
“Deltiology”. “Bubbles” reveals a debt to mid-
gos US indie rock, but the wheezing accordion
of “Not Realising How Blind That Was” and the
poignant fiddle on “Open Return” ensure this
remains pleasantly, eccentrically English.
WYNDHAM WALLACE

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 79

ANDY WHALE

New Albums

BILLY
BRAGG

Tooth & Nail

COOKING VINYL

Great songs, Bill, but please
sing in your own accent next
time, suggests John Lewis

AROUND A DECADE
ago, Iinterviewed
the comedy writer
and actor Stephen
Merchant about his
love of Billy Bragg.
“The relationship
between Tim and
Dawn in The Office
could have come
6/10 straight out ofa Billy

Bragg lyric,” said
Merchant. “What’s brilliant about him is that he
sings in sucha personal voice, from sucha specific
geographical space, but he’s able to make those
specificities utterly universal.”

It’s why Bragg, like Merchant and Gervais’ The
Office, is a global brand. Bragg can sell out large
theatres from Sacramento to Sydney by singing
songs that areas English as warm bitter and milky
tea. These are tightly plotted soap-operas; love songs
set on drab council estates. The problem is that his
new album - recorded in California with Americana
producer Joe Henry and featuring some of LA's finest
country rock musicians - is a bit like watching a
beautifully scripted episode of the American Office
in which all the parts are being played by British
actors doing terrible American accents.

By some distance, the best track here is
"Handyman Blues", a lovely, lazy, 16-bar blues
shufflein which Bragg mournfully admits to his
partner that he can't put up a shelf or change a plug
in the way his blue-collar father could (“I know it
looks like I’m just reading the paper/But these ideas
Pll turn to gold dust later/'Cos I'm a writer not a
decorator/I'm not your handyman"). For all the
Americana clothing (particularly a neat bottleneck
guitar accompaniment by Greg Leisz), it's sung in
Bragg's own accent, and does what all great art does,
which is to universalise the personal, to paint the
world ina grain of sand. Other tracks feature
songwriting and musical performances that are
just as good, butall are marred by Bragg singing in
an American accent.

Sometimes the accent shift is subtle, with Bragg
just shaving off some ofthe harsher vowel sounds to
fitin with the melody line. *No One Knows Nothing
Anymore" is a mid-tempo country rock gem, while
"Chasing Rainbows" is a tremendous ballad with
more than a nod to Hank Williams' *Your Cheating
Heart". Both discreetly negotiate the accent shift
without interfering with the narrative — besides, in
both cases you're too transfixed upon Leisz's heart-
tugging pedal steel solo to notice. In other cases,
great songs are all but ruined. “There Will Be A
Reckoning” isa stirring, Springsteen-ish political
tub-thumper, but from the moment he sings about
“walking on the streets where I was born” ina terrible
Delta drawl, you're reminded that the streets where
Bragg was born were in Barking, not Baton Rouge.
"Swallow My Pride" is a splendid Southern soul
ballad in 6/8, but – from the moment Bragg
pronounces “photo” as *pho-do" – you cringe.

For the most part, there’s nothing wrong with the
lyrics. “Do Unto Others” is a fine secular hymn,

BILLY BRAGG @

8O | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

^ Recorded at Joe

Henry's home studio,
Pasadena, California

Produced by Joe Henry

while “January Song" has some smart
digs at the Tea Party (“politicians selling
freedom/Bumper sticker 50 cents/Ask
them what they wanna be free from/
Answer don’t make any sense”) but, in
both cases, the voice never convinces.
With each of these songs, you try hard
to respect the narrative, but all you can
hear is the ventriloquism. You'd like to
hear them covered by Bragg’s Stateside pals - some
of these would sound fantastic ifrendered bya
Rosanne Cash, a Steve Earle, or a Jeff Tweedy — or,
better still, you'd like to hear Bragg attempt them in

Q&A

Billy Bragg

How did you hook up with Joe
Henry? He's one of my favourite
songwriters, l've known him for
25 years and | love all his recent
albums with the likes of Bettye
LaVette, Solomon Burke,

Allen Toussaint and Elvis Costello. In 2008,

he asked me to take part in the Ruhrtriennale
festival he runs in Germany, and | did a week

of gigs with Rosanne Cash. He invited me to
come and record. "We could get an album
done in five days," he suggested. And we did.
l've not recorded that fast since Life's A Riot...
30 years ago.

Personnel: Billy Bragg
(vocals, acoustic guitar),
Greg Leisz (guitars,
mandolins, pedal

steel), Patrick Warren
(keys), Jay Bellerose
(drums), David Piltch
(double bass)

his own accent. Bragg says he wanted
to avoid sounding like pastiche, but the
paradox is that the harder he aims at
country rock authenticity, the more
inauthentic it sounds. Unlike, say,
Steve Marriott or Paul Weller, he
doesn’t have the facility to switch
seamlessly from guttural Estuary
English into blue-eyed soul. His USP
is that beautifully blank Cockney honk, one that’s
helped to transform the grammar of British rock
music as radically as John Lydon or Robert Wyatt.
He needs to use it more.

In feel and sound, it’s very similar to Mermaid
Avenue? Absolutely. | actually talked about doing
Mermaid Avenue with Joe before deciding to do
it with Wilco. | see this as a follow-up to Mermaid
Avenue, which is fitting as | spent much of last
year playing shows to celebrate Woody Guthrie's
centenary. Playing his songs on an acoustic, the
audience metaphorically leans in to listen to you. |
wanted to do a whole record like that, rather than
being the noisy bloke blasting away in the corner.

Why the American accent? l've done it quite a bit
before.Here Joe really gave me the confidence
to sing in that way. | think my voice has got better
as l've got older and my range has got lower. | feel
like I’m able to get the weight of the emotion in
each song by singing in that mode, that accent.
But yeah, it would be interesting to try them

in Cockney... INTERVIEW: JOHN LEWIS

Steve Mason - Monkey Minds In The Devil's Time

Out March 18th а 2xLP/CD/DL doublesixrecords.com stevemasontheartist.com

BLAK AND BLU

THE DEBUT ALBUM - OUT NOW
'NEW BLUES HERO JUSTIFIES THE HYPE' - UNCUT

GARYCLARKJR.COM

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JNGCU

ШИШИШИ

с zd

SCORING: THE ORIGINAL ALBUM

10 Masterpiece
SCORING: EXTRA MATERIAL

DUANE ALLMAS

1 Poor!

DISC ONE:
1-3 The Escorts
4-9 TheAllman Joys

10-18 The Hour Glass
19-20 31st Of February
21-23 TheBleus

DISC TWO:

1-2 Clarence Carter
3-6 Wilson Pickett
7-8 LauraLee

9 Spencer Wiggins
10-13 Arthur Conley
l4 Willie Walker
15-16 TheLovelles
17-18 Aretha Franklin
19-21 SoulSurvivors
22-25 King Curtis

26 TheSweetlnspirations

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REISSUES|COMPS|BOXSETS|LOST RECORDINGS

The slide-guitar god and Southern rock avatar finally
gets his due via a massive career overview. By Bud Scoppa

UNTIL NOW, NO guitar great's

career has been as under-
represented as has that of Duane Allman, who
packeda lifetime's worth of music into seven
intensive and wildly productive years. Previous
efforts to compile Allman's body of work were
stymied by lawsuits and massive licensing issues.
Ittook the concerted efforts of Bill Levenson,
who'd been forced to shelve an earlier attempt at a
career overview while working at Universal Music
in the mid- 90s, and Galadrielle Allman, Duane's
only child, who's been on a lifelong mission to get
to know her father through his music, to finally
bring the long-delayed project to fruition.

To say the resulting seven-disc boxset — with 129

tracks, 33 of them either previously unreleased or

unissued on CD — has been worth the wait
would bea gross understatement. Skydogis
an addictive, endlessly captivating aural
history of a towering figure in rock history,
with each disc forming a distinct chapter in
the sprawling narrative.

The first disc, which collects 23 of Duane and
brother Gregg's initial efforts with the Escorts,
which begat the Allman Joys, which in turn begat
Hour Glass, spilling into brief forays with Butch
Trucks' 31st Of February and long-forgotten group
The Bleus, is a microcosm of the apprenticeships
undertaken by so many musicians in the mid- to
late '60s. After an initial infatuation with The
Beatles, the siblings began to explore the blues
and R’n’B, for which they shared a deep

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 83

JOHN GELLMAN

=
,

ALLMAX BROS
FRAGILE
T

DISC THREE:
1 The Barry Goldberg Blues Band
2-4 Duane Allman

5-7 Otis Rush

8-9 TheDuck & The Bear

10-15 BozScaggs

14-17 The Allman Brothers Band

DISC FOUR:

1-3 TheAllman Brothers Band
4-8 Ronnie Hawkins

9-12 Lulu

13-16 Johnny Jenkins

17-20 John Hammond

21-22 DorisDuke

DISCFIVE:

1 Eric Quince Tate: Comin' Down (demo version)
2-5 TheAllmanBrothers Band

6 Delaney & Bonnie & Friends
7 Laura Nyro: Beads Of Sweat
8 The Allman Brothers Band

9 Delaney & Bonnie & Friends
10-11 Ella Brown

12 Bobby Lance

13-16 Derek & The Dominos

17 EricClapton & Duane Allman

DISC SIX:

13 — SamSamudio
4-6 Ronnie Hawkins
7-8 Delaney & Bonnie & Friends
9-10 The Allman Brothers Band (live)
n The Grateful Dead

12 The Allman Brothers Band (live)

13-15 Herbie Mann

DISC SEVEN:

1-5 Delaney & Bonnie & Friends (live)
4 The Allman Brothers Band (live)
5 Cowboy: Please Be With Me
бло The Allman Brothers Band

(Duane Allman plays on all tracks.)

ЗД | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

FRAGILE

ALLMAN S

oA
AINE уу” é
Жї, 4 P

. affinity, with a fascinating side-trip into
the psychedelic blues of the Jeff Beck-era
Yardbirds, providing a key learning experience
for Duane. They then made an early attempt at
making commercial records, signing a deal with
Liberty Records, which renamed them Hour Glass
and forced them into confining stylistic contexts.

Even then, the brothers' soulfulness showed
through - after two stiff albums, they headed
to Muscle Shoals and essentially drew up the
blueprint for the Allman Brothers Band with
foreshadowing showcases like *BB King Medley"
and Gregg's "Been Gone Too Long", only to be
shot down by the label. After the stint with the
31st Of February, the brothers went their separate
Ways, Gregg exiled to the West Coast in an aborted
attempt ata solo career, while Duane remained
in Florida, playing every gig he could find,
treading water.

Duane’s fortunes changed in the space of a
single Wilson Pickett session in late 1968 at Rick
Hall's Fame Studio in Muscle Shoals, as the young
interloper wowed Hall and the seasoned session
players with his prodigious natural talent,
erupting Vesuvius-like on a mind-blowing cover
of *Hey Jude" after being pent up for solongin
Hour Glass. Disc Two compiles Duane's session
work with Pickett, Clarence Carter, Arthur Conley,
Aretha Franklin, the Soul Survivors, King Curtis
and others, as Hall and Atlantic's Jerry Wexler

used him extensively in early '69, knowing
they'd discovered a
prodigy with jaw-
dropping chops and
unlimited potential.
Wexler thought
enough of Duane to
sign him to a solo deal,
and three of his early
efforts are compiled on
Disc Three, which
encompasses the
spring and summer
of 1969. But he was
collaborative by

TS The Allmans, Macon, Georgia,
1971-shots fromthe session were
thenbizarrely used for the cover

of live album At Fillmore East 2

nature, and he apparently realised that quickly
enough to abandon the project, return to Florida,
and begin assembling the Allman Brothers Band
with Muscle Shoals drummer Jai Johanny “Jaimo”
Johanson, bassist Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks and
guitarist Dickey Betts, summoning Gregg from LA
to complete the lineup. But he also continued to do
sessions to pay the rent while developing the
band’s sound, an audaciously open-ended
amalgam of blues, R'n'B, jazz and rock'n'roll.

If Duane was a magnetic presence to his fellow
musicians in Muscle Shoals, Daytona Beach and
New York, he remained unknown to the rest of the
world until Atlantic’s September 1969 release of
Boz Scaggs, recorded at Fame and containing the
13-minute blues epic “Loan Me A Dime”, with an
extended performance from Duane so withering
it stopped the critics in their tracks. Two months
later, The Allman Brothers Band came out,
unleashing the glorious tempest of “Whipping
Post”, the prototypical harmonised guitar riffage
of “Black Hearted Woman” and the crushed-velvet
textures of “Dreams”. A month after that, the
group blew the roof off the Fillmore East for
the first time. And just like that, the train was
roaring down the tracks, a runaway express
bound for glory.

Thenextthree discs, each capturing a few
retrospectively precious months at a time, as 1969
emptied into 1970, find Duane and his simpático
bandmates converting the masses on concert
stages across the States with their enthralling,
force-of-nature sets, their magisterial, all-
business, no-bullshit stage presence a direct
reflection of their leader, willowy and bent to his
task, a blue-collar Michelangelo. You couldn't
take your eyes off him.

While the band was kicking back in Macon,
enjoying the downtime, the tireless guitarist was
showing up at sessions for everyone worth a damn
from Ronnie Hawkins to Lulu, from Sam The
Sham to Herbie Mann, changing the climate of
every tracking room he entered. His abiding
relationship with the knowing engineer/producer
Tom Dowd led to Idlewild South and a few ecstatic

ALLAN? BROS.

HIGH-FLYING DOG

The boxset's best moments

31ST OF FEBRUARY, MELISSA

(previously unreleased on CD) (Disc One)

In her notes to the boxset, Galadrielle marvels
at “the strength and surprising tenderness of his
playing, his raw honesty and joyfulness". Duane's
slide guitar work on this original recording of
Gregg’s song with Butch Trucks’ band from
September 1968, recut by the ABB for Eat A
Peach after Duane's death, perfectly captures
these qualities.

WILSON PICKETT, HEY JUDE (Disc Two)

“Most people have to work their way in,” session
guitarist Jimmy Johnson told liner notes writer
Scott Schinder about the pecking order at Fame.
“When Duane did that date with Pickett, he was
in. That’s never happened before or since, and

| don’t think it ever will happen again. The players
that had been playing lead, we just didn’t use
them anymore.”

THE GRATEFUL DEAD, SUGAR MAGNOLIA
(live, previously unreleased) (Disc Six) EN
When Duane mixed it up with Jerry Garcia and
Bob Weir on the Fillmore East stage in April

1971, it wasa collision of fundamentally discrete
improvisational impulses. Says Galadrielle, "The
Dead's music had such a rambling, groovin' on
down the road vibe to it, whereas the Allman
Brothers' instrumental work was truly coming
from a jazz tradition."

DELANEY & BONNIE, POORELIJAH/
TRIBUTE TO JOHNSON (live, previously unreleased)
(Disc Seven)

Four months before his death, Duane joined
Delaney, Bonnie and percussionist Sam Clayton
ina down-home acoustic mini-set for New York's
WPL, including this simmering slice of raw grit.
“Delaney came from Randolph, Mississippi, and
had that Delta blues background, and Duane cut
his teeth on the blues of Robert Johnson and
Elmore James,” says Bobby Whitlock.

nights at Criteria in Miami with Eric Clapton and
his Dominos making what may be the most
exalted example ever of dueling electric guitars.
Disc Seven, charting what would be the last few
months of his life – an acoustic workout with
Delaney & Bonnie for New York's WPL] in July,
an Allmans stop at the same station a month later,
live and studio recordings from September,
topped by the penultimate cut, an immersive
18-minute “Dreams”. Then, finally, the only
recording that could end this opus, the
shimmering acoustic duet with Dickey, “Little
Martha”, its heartbreaking beauty intensified
by the cumulative tidal force of the music that
preceded it, while being reminded of the first
time we heard it, on Eat A Peach, not long after
we lost him.

If Duane Allman’s purpose in life was to play
the guitar, his daughter’s purpose appears just
as Clearly to give voice to her father’s wordless
expressiveness. Galadrielle, who’s finishing a
book about her father, captures his prodigious
soulfulness more vividly than anyone else who
has yet attempted to do so in her notes to Skydog.
“His spirit shines through every song,” she writes.
“There is something forever unknowable in his
music, a mystery I cannot solve by listening,
an element that is wholly his own and does not
translate into words. Music told the truth. He
grabbed on toit from the very beginning and
never let it go.” Amen.

Galadrielle Allman, Bill Levenson and Bobby Whitlock
remember Skydog and pick their choice cuts from the box

HERE DID YOU get your name,

Galadrielle?

GALADRIELLE ALLMAN:

My father gave it to me, from
The Lord Of The Rings, one of his favourite books.
I was born іп 1969 in Macon, simultaneously with
the band. It’s a big part of my life trying to get to
know him and being part of preserving his legacy.

While the two of you were compiling the
material as the co-producers of the boxset,
what moments jumped out at you?

BILL LEVENSON: On the first disc, in’66 the
Allman Joys went through this Yardbirds fixation,
and “Mr You're A Better Man Than!” is an
astounding read fora couple of kidsin Florida
who were just demoing their stuff. I found the tape
back in’89 when I was working on the Allmans'
Dreams set. We went to visit Mama Ain Daytona
Beach. She made us lunch, and when we were
talking about tapes, she said, “Y’know, I’ve got
these tapes over the refrigerator in the cupboard.
Why don’t you look and see

interesting that [the Escorts’ previously unissued]
“Turn On Your Lovelight” was so early. That's а
song he could’ve played all of his life. I love his
solo on the Soul Survivors’ “Darkness”. There are
lots of moments like that, when you can feel him
blazing out of the context of the song; it’s so
exciting. Boz Scaggs’ “Loan Me A Dime” has
always been one of my favorites. Generally, Ilove
the fact that it’s such a diverse and progressive
collection; it really does reveal his development,
that he wasn’t just a master who came out of
nowhere and built a great Southern rock band.
He was more complicated than that, with an
incredible range of experiences.

Bobby, did you know Duane was the real deal
when he came into the studio and started
playing with the Dominos?

BOBBY WHITLOCK: When we were on the road
touring England as Derek & The Dominos, we
were traveling in Eric's 6.3 Mercedes for most of
thegigs that were near London. Our previous
night's performance and
the Allman Brothers live

what they are?” So I reached
backin the cupboard and
grabbed these little five-

“Т stayed up with |

tape was all that we listened
to. "Whipping Post" wasa

inch reels, and among favourite. That was before
them were these Yardbirds D uane and Clapto n, even the thought of Duane
covers. And the only reason ‚ entered the picture. Now it
thistrack never got used tra ding Rob € rt comes to me that at that
was because it had some ‚ » timea seed was planted
tape damage on the front Johns on licks that blossomed in Miami on
end. But Galadrielle said, : Layla.... stayed up all night
“Tt’s soimportant, just let it with Duane and Eric at the
go. It’s better to present the Thunderbird Motel in

five minutes with 10 seconds of distortion than
not to present it at all." The Delaney & Bonnie

& Friends WPLJ concert is just stunning stuff;
most of it's unreleased, and for me, that becomes
the heart ofthe package, almost.

GA: It’s really hard to pick specific songs, but
Ido have personal favourites. I thought it was

Miami listening to them trading off licks from
Elmore James and Robert Johnson. That was one
incredible night I will never forget. Iknew I was
bearing witness to something very special and
sacred. Duane and Eric were like long-lost
brothers reuniting, and nothing had changed
except now they were men. INTERVIEW: BUD SCOPPA

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 85

Archive

THEE LEE LE E E EET

12
13

l4
15
16
17

THE COLUMBIA ALBUMS COLLECTION

Blue Оузїег Cult (1972)

- with 2001 CD bonus tracks

Tyranny And Mutation (1973)

- with 2001 CD bonus tracks

Secret Treaties (1974)

- 2001 CD bonus tracks

On Your Feet Or On Your Knees (1975)

- 2012 remaster

Agents Of Fortune (1976)

- with 2001 CD bonus tracks

Spectres (1977) - with 2007 CD bonus tracks
Some Enchanted Evening (1978) (CD)

- with 2007 CD bonus tracks

Some OTHER Enchanted Evening (1978)
(DVD)

Mirrors (1979) - 2012 remaster

Cultósaurus Erectus (1980)

- 2012 remaster

Fire Of Unknown Origin (1981)

- 2012 remaster

Extraterrestrial Live (1982) - 2012 remaster
The Revolution By Night (1983)

- 2012 remaster

Club Ninja (1985) - 2012 remaster

Imaginos (1988) - 2012 remaster

Rarities

Radios Appear: The Best Of The Broadcasts

96 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

ИШШШШИШШШШШИШШИШИШШШШШИШИШИШШИШИШИШШИИШИШШШ

SONY/LEGACY

BLUE OYSTER CUIT

i È

“Guess what? I got a fever. And the only prescription is
more cowbell.” Classic BOC, boxed. By John Robinson

AS MUCH AS itis in their umlaut

and heavy rock, Blue Öyster
Cult’s story is also written in their cover versions.
A faithful, affectionate “Be My Baby”. After John
Lennon’s murder, a screamingly heavy note-perfect
“I Want You (She’s So Heavy)”. A crazed 1972 “Born
To Be Wild”, not to mention a 1978 “Kick Out Their
Jams”. While they enjoy a reputation, in part thanks
to the efforts of The Simpsons and Saturday Night
Live, as the archetypal metal band of middle
America, Blue Öyster Cult were a far poppier, more
melodic, even more countercultural proposition.
A lot of guitar, a lot of show, alot of mythology: at
their best, the band were an arena rock MC5.

A garage rock band with chops in excess of their
calling, the young members of Blue Oyster Cult
couldn't fitin on Elektra, and instead spent the
1970s making a fantastical world of their own on

Columbia. Strange hierarchies. Automotive speed.
Sado-masochism. Blue Oyster Cult might well have
been designed with the interests of the college-age
male in mind. Rather than show the world their
unimpressive faces, the band hid behind a firewall
of mystical imagery and enormous riffs. Even until
the end of their career, their albums were assembled
with the help of clandestine guests: producer Sandy
Pearlman; journalist Richard Meltzer; Patti Smith.

Allintoxicating stuff. But without the band’s
classic 1976 single “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper", it’s
doubtful we'd be talking in quite this detail. Written
alone, as were later hits like "Godzilla", by the
band's extraordinary guitar player Donald “Buck
Dharma" Roeser, the single was a watershed
moment for the band. It took BOC from a band you
would see play ata city college to one you would see
ata metropolitan sports arena and made the

JEANNE GALARNEAU

Q&A

Eric Bloom

What's it like seeing your
career laid out in a box

like this?

My favourite disc is the rarities,
the live tapes of “I Want You
(She’s So Heavy)”, and the
three songs that we submitted to the movie
Teachers. Terrible movie, but | think the songs
are good. Our management did the dirty work
of listening to all the tapes. Our soundman
George had alot of these, and he did alot of
work cleaning them up. There's a Who song, |
think. | was talking to our manager and he said,
"There's a better performance of that but the
lyrics are so wrong we couldn't put it on there."

Do you see your career as pre-"Reaper" and
post-"Reaper"?

That's sort of true. When we weren't making
aliving we had band houses; alot of the writing
was collective. We would create in the
basement or living room. Tyranny And
Mutation, a lot of it was written on tour. |
remember sitting in hotel rooms and Albert
would hit a spoon on a book for a drum sound.
But as we got more successful, we got four-
track recorders: Buck wrote "Reaper" like that
and just walked in with a completed song.

inescapable fact of death a staple of FM rock radio
like no song since “Stairway To Heaven".

Having tasted the highs of success, however, it
became difficult for the band to know quite where
to go next. Their records remained as theatrical as
they had hitherto been, but their concepts were
now written with the mainstream rather than
underground in mind. Spectres from 1977 was
propelled by *Godzilla" and *RU Ready To Rock".
Meanwhile, throughout the late 1970s, the band
would be able to feed their live repertoire (there
are three original live albums in here, a “best of
the broadcasts" liveradio disc, and also a
download code to four more full concerts) by
adding to their repertoire of decent songs at about
therate of onean album.

Most, like *Black Blade" (from 1979's Mirrors) or
the Rainbow-like “Burnin’ For You", another Buck
Dharma joint from Fire Of Unknown Origin (1981)
are good. Their parent albums, beyond 1980's
Cultósaurus Erectus, however, are more of a
challenge, a mixture of self-glorifying heavy
metal anthems and science-fiction hijinks (writer
Michael Moorcock wrote songs for BOC, as he had
done for Hawkwind) played out in Jim
Steinman-style AOR soundscapes.

It’s particularly painful to

How did you evolve from the underground
Stalk-Forrest group to the heavier Blue
Oyster Cult?

Before | got there, it was like a jam band

with improvised lyrics. We were not making
a living playing original material, so we had to
go back to the bars and play cover material,
which honed our skills a little bit. We would
get fired if we played originals. It was a lot

of fun. We used to play biker bars and there
were fights every night, guys would shove
another guy's head in the bass drum. So we
got louder and heavier - it was evolution. We
would play an original and say, "Here's a Glen
Campbell song..."

How did it work in the band with
contributions from Sandy Pearlman

and Richard Meltzer?

The first band house we had on Long Island,
Meltzer lived in with his girlfriend and he had
lyrics he would lay on us, and Sandy had lyrics
he would lay on us. Sandy would give us
direction: if he thought it was wrong, he
would speak up.

What do you make of it when Blue Oyster
Cult shows up in The Simpsons or Saturday
Night Live?

We're always happy to show up іп mainstream
places like that. The “More cowbell” sketch
was from the mind of Will Ferrell, | think.
INTERVIEW: JOHN ROBINSON

attempt to reconcile, say, '85's flat Club Ninja as
the work of the same band that made the first
three records included here. Known for their
monochromatic covers, the band's eponymous
debut (1972), Tyranny And Mutation (1973) and
Secret Treaties (1974) enjoy a mythology of their
own, and rightly so. These are *the black and
white albums", and they announce the death
knell of 1960s peacerock culture in terms abstract
(*Transmaniacon MC", about Altamont),
anthemic (“The Last Days Of May”) and formal
(“Hot Rails To Hell”, written on their first tour,
supporting Alice Cooper).

The band’s management had initially proposed
them as an American riposte to Black Sabbath,
(the two would later tour together), but what they
got was something less monolithic, but ultimately
far more enjoyable and dangerous. At their peak
Blue Oyster Cult played music with the fury of
punk, the classicism of Bruce Springsteen and
the macabre preoccupations of the Velvets. It’s
hilarious, and at the same time no laughing matter
at all. Cowbell and all, itis simply great rock’n’roll.
Rarities disc; “in concert”
7/10 radio disc; download
for more shows; notes by
Lenny Kaye.

| Orr,

Archive

""* ADULT.

Resuscitation
(reissue, 2001)
GHOSTLY INTERNATIONAL

Stern electro duo's
finest moments
Detroit's Adult. were
ЗЛО always the odd couple at
the electroclash ball,
scowling in the corner while the rest lapped
up their 15 minutes. Ascetic and aloof, the
husband-and-wife pair of photographer/
vocalist Nicola Kuperus and producer Adam
Lee Miller peddled comically dark electropop
and stark new wave - at the time, in Motor
City terms, they were the logical connection
between Drexciya and The White Stripes.
A compilation of early singles, Resuscitation
remains their best album because it captures
the searing energy and bloody-mindedness
of two young idealists stopping at nothing to
realise their vision. Subsequent releases would
see Adult.’s appeal diminish as they turned into
a grungy post-punk band no different to scores
of others, but between 1998 and 2001 they
dispatched a dozen missives from a sterilised
world of spotless surfaces, each release
complemented by Kuperus’ Cindy Sherman-
style still-life shots. Over the austere electro of
“Nausea” and “Human Wreck" the Cruella de
Vil-ish frontwoman snarls about modern-day
trauma - anxiety, stress and failure — but
unlike, say, their heirs Crystal Castles, Adult.
could at least poke fun at themselves with
titles like *Dispassionate Furniture". Droll
misanthropy from two neurotic outsiders.
EXTRAS: Bonus tracks.
6/10 PIERS MARTIN

BARDO POND

Ticket Crystals
(reissue, 2006)
FIRE

Splendid seventh
from Philadelphian
fringe dwellers

5/10 Album titles that relate

directly to obscure
hallucinogens and acontribution toa
Spacemen 3 tribute album give a pretty clear
indication of Bardo Pond’s interests and intent.
Theirs is a masterly and distinctive take on
cosmic/post/stoner rock honed over two
decades, including an early flirtation with
avant-jazz jams, channelled through fellow
Philly resident, Sun Raand his Arkestra. But for
years now, their sound has been characterised
by radically attenuated, subtly shifting psych
rock grooves, hypnotic drone and washes of
white noise and feedback, interlaced with
Isobel Sollenberger’s haunted vocals and wyrd-
folk flute. Their Ticket Crystals LP from 2006 -
reissued on vinyl only, with new artwork - is
a good entry point for BP novices due to its sonic
diversity and its ability to affect not only the
head, but also the heart, especially via epic
instrumental “FC II”. This clocks in at 18
minutes, its endless loop of sawing violin,
buzzy drone and whining electronics as
perfect as a Móbius strip, set against deeply
dubby atmospherics. It's in sharp contrast to
their cover of The Beatles’ “Cry Baby Cry”,
where Sollenberger coos like Cat Power. Hell,
even doomy cosmic voyagers need to kick
back on occasion.
None.

SHARON O'CONNELL

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | $7

Archive

GENE CLARK

Here Tonight: The
White Light Demos

OMNIVORE

Fresh produce for
fans and armchair
psychologists to chew on
8/10 Thisrecently unearthed
treasure trove of 1970 song
demos was laid down while Clark was holed ир
with his girlfriend ina rustic cabin on the
Northern California coast during a brief respite
from theLA music biz. What's immediately
striking about these recordings, containing
nothing but Clark's voice, acoustic strumming
and harmonica, is how unburdened they seem,
a rarity in the output of this famously troubled
artist. Generally, the original takes of the seven
songs subsequently chosen for the Jesse Ed
Davis-produced White Light come across with
a hermetic intensity that would be lightened by
the lilt of the studio arrangements. Aside from
“Jimmy Christ”, a snippet of Biblical imagery,
the songs that didn’t make White Light are
worthwhile additions to the Clark canon.
“Please Mr Freud” displays Clark’s delight
in Dylan-esque wordplay, as he playfully
appropriates Bob’s vocal idiosyncrasies, and
“Opening Day” contains all the signifiers fora
full-on Byrds treatment, while “Winter In” and
“For No One” subtly convey the austere beauty
of the fogbound Mendocino coastline. But even
these moments of relative repose unfurl against
an unmistakable backdrop of deep melancholy,
like shafts of sunlight intermittently appearing
amid a thick bank of storm clouds.
EXTRAS: None.

BUD SCOPPA

CHARLES
DOUGLAS

Not Your Kind
Of Music - The
Basement Tapes
1995-1999

BROKEN HORSE

ЗӨ Leavingnoturn
unstoned, here's
Douglas' early years, compiled
This double set pulls together four '9os albums
by bedroom pop prodigy Charles Douglas. If
you picked up the recent reissue of 1999's The
Lives Of Charles Douglas, his brilliantly bolshy
NYC garage-pop album, produced by Moe
Tucker, you'll have some idea of what to expect,
but Not Your Kind Of Musicis far more primitive
— often justa drum machine, a scratchy guitar
and a quaking voice singing out impossibly
catchy melodies from his parents' basement.
Douglas has a rare knack for a compellingly odd
popsong, in thelineage of Jonathan Richman or
Daniel Johnston, but with a hardened cynicism
and observational flair for personal minutiae
that's far more streetwise. While Douglas was
signed to a major, they refused to release any
ofthese albums, claiming they were far too
uncommercial; Douglas took matters into his
own hands, with the usual outcomes - ofthe
300 copies of 1997's The Burdens Of Genius
shipped, 250 were returned. This time, you can
help cheat these extraordinary, hyper-personal
records out of their self-designed obscurity.
“ATRAS: None really, but Douglas’ liners are
8/10 mindbogglingly great. He'd write a
fantastic memoir. Limited copies come with
a free EP of further material.
JON DALE

88 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

THE DURUTTI
Sh. COLUMN
چیک‎ "- LC (reissue, 1981)
| ОХ FACTORYBENELUX
а a И
td n Mancunian guitar
E wizard's masterly
second album

8/10 ViniReilly'sfirstalbum,
The Return Of The Durutti
Column, was more notorious for its sandpaper
sleeve than the music contained therein. The
sleeve was a Factory Records joke, designed
to destroy neighbouring albums. The music -
despite borrowing a band name from a group of
Spanish anarchists - was less demonstrative,
and more rewarding. The follow-up, 1981's LC
(short for “Lotta Continua" - continuous
struggle) is no noisier, though it includes some
piano, and skittish drums (by Bruce Mitchell of
Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias). Reilly recorded
it quickly on a four-track bought from Bill
Nelson, prizing spontaneity over studio polish.
Hesings occasionally (in the manner ofa
whispering Bernard Sumner), notably on the
beautiful opener, *Sketch For Dawn (1)".
Broadly speaking, it's uncategorisable. Reilly –
classical by training, derailed by punk - went
for “new wave", by which he meant he was in
serious opposition to rock'n'roll, and while he
was experimental by intuition, his instincts
were towards listenability. There's a lovely song
for Ian Curtis, *The Missing Boy", which
demonstrates that while he was a Factory man,
his music transcends that time and place.
23 bonus tracks, including three
5/10 produced by Martin Hannett, with
A Certain Ratio's Donald Johnson on drums.
ALASTAIR McKAY

REVELATIONS

Vini Reilly on Factory Records,
his accidental album LC and a
song for Ian Curtis

» "| recall Factory being very disorganised,”
says Vini Reilly. “Tony Wilson left me to my
own devices. | bought a four-track reel-to-reel
from Bill Nelson. It was knackered, a very old
machine. One night, about 3am, | went in my
mum's spare bedroom, and felt very inspired
andrecorded for about three hours, with a
space echo, one guitar, a very cheap drum
machine and тіс. | put it onto cassette, and
next day Tony asked me if he could havea
listen. He listened, and he wouldn't give me
my Walkman back. Next day we went into a
small studio which was really built for jingles
so Bruce could add his drums and | put a piano
down. Tony said that's great, that's an album.

"The song ‘The Missing Boy’ is for lan Curtis.
Thetitle came from when we were in America:
myself, ACR and New Order were sat by the
hotel pool one day, in LA, feeling pleased with
ourselves. | suddenly turned round, and said to
Tony: you know who's missing, don't you? He
said, yeah, lan. At exactly that point, the piece
of music arrived in my head and that was it."
ALASTAIR McKAY

| ade Hims | LUKE HAINES
2 Off My Rocker At
«t The Art School Bop
" 5 (reissue, 2006)
- FANTASTIC PLASTIC

ч Digital re-release of

; underrated, long-deleted
ЗӨ mini-masterpiece

On this album's release,

seven years ago, the selling point was producer
du jour Richard X's presenceon the title track.
It’s actually the least interesting part on an LP
that bristles with grim comedy, a glam rock
musical that could have been scripted by some
surreal union of David Peace and Frankie
Boyle. “Leeds United" is a masterpiece of lyric
writing: quotidian tales of domestic drudgery
(“When I get home/My wife will kill me") turn out
to bea chilling tale that's narrated from the
POV ofthe Yorkshire Ripper. Elsewhere Haines
paints 1970s Britain as a land of organised
sexual abuse (*Gary Glitter is a bad, bad man/
Ruining the reputation of the Glitter Band"),
closeted boxing gangsters (“Freddie Mills Is
Dead”), endemic violence (“Fighting In The City
Tonight”), and more organised sexual abuse
(“The Walton Hop” addresses Jonathan King’s
old stomping ground). Haines clearly eyes
three-day weeks, IRA bombing campaigns,
endless strikes and antiquated pub closing
hours with mild affection, but then gleefully
undercuts any nostalgia with a broadside at
“The Heritage Rock Revolution” (“It’s a middle-

aged rampage!”).
EXTRAS: A five-track EP featuring a live, solo

6/10 version of “Leeds United”, with an
alarmingly prescient Jimmy Savile reference.
JOHN LEWIS

4. hm.

PAUL
HARDCASTLE
Electrofied 80s:
Essential Paul
Hardcastle
DEMON MUSIC GROUP

ШИШЕ

“19” star’s smooth
5/70 jazzlegacy

At 30 tracks filling two
discs, this retrospective of Paul Hardcastle's
30-year career plays havoc with the definition of
‘essential’, yet it paints a picture of a man who
has seldom compromised his art. Most know
Hardcastle from “19”, his 1985 electro-funk No 1
about the Vietnam War that has not aged well
despite a succession of trendy facelifts — a 2011
dub version, included here, updates the conflict
narrative with samples of a report on British
troops killed in Afghanistan and, for added
pathos, a crying baby. Above all, we're
reminded, jazz-funk courses like Babycham
through every fibre of Hardcastle's being.
This resulted in some pretty bland cocktail
pieces such as "Sound Of Summer" and
the scat-soul of “Time Machine", but it also
allowed Hardcastle to smuggle his modern
take on US synthesiser funk into the charts
in the mid-'80s with “Rain Forest”, “Just For
Money” and “The Wizard", which became
the Top Of The Pops theme for five years.
Admittedly, the calibre of his blend of smooth
jazz and urban swing is hard to fault, but it
says something when the appearance of
“The Voyager" - the balmy theme to the
BBC'slong-running Holiday programme -
is greeted with relief.
None.
PIERS MARTIN

LEE
HAZLEWOOD
Trouble Is A

Lonesome Town
(reissue, 1963)
LIGHT IN THE ATTIC

Expanded first set from
ЗЛО quixotic warbler
Hazlewood’s debut, from
1963, promised to tell the tale of a town called
Trouble *in a manner which will give you a
unique half-hour of enjoyment" - a small
ambition. In truth the record was little more
than a demo, with spartan arrangements, by
Hazlewood's later standards. It was his first
non-pseudonymous release, but most of his
instincts were fully-formed, after years working
as a DJ, songwriter and producer (his audio
biog, included here, shows he also had a well-
developed sense of his own myth). He released
afew singles under the name Mark Robinson,
with Duane Eddy on guitar (“Pretty Jane", from
1958, is stuttering rock'n'roll, the B-side, “Want
Me” isan Everly Brothers pastiche), but Trouble
was conceived as a means of marketing his
songs, made more coherent by the spoken-word
intros which broadened the concept, and added
a note of dark comedy. Happily, the songs are
great. “Long Black Train” and “Run Boy Run”
are as near as dammit Johnny Cash numbers,
and “We All Make The Flowers Grow” isa
rumination on death, whichis maudlin,
but sounds bright - the exact opposite of
Hazlewood’s usual formula.
Three unreleased tracks, released as
7/10 “Mark Robinson” and with Duane

Eddy, audio-autobiography.
ALASTAIR McKAY

JIMI
HENDRIX
People, Hell And

Angels
SONY MUSIC

Jimi keeps on
> jamming from
6/0 beyond the grave
The market for Hendrix
off-cuts shows little sign in abating. This latest
release gathers 12 more of his dizzyingly
copious post-Experience studio recordings,
mostly featuring Billy Cox and Buddy Miles
but also Rocky Isaac, saxophonist Lonnie
Youngblood and, on “Somewhere”, Stephen
Stills on bass. Although all the tracks are
previously unreleased, most of the material
is familiar: some of it (“Earth Song”,
“Somewhere”) may be noticeably different
from previously issued versions, but almost
all the songs have been heard before on other
archive releases. The exceptions are “Inside
Out”, an embryonic instrumental version of The
Cry Of Love’s “Ezy Rider”, and “Let Me Move
You”, along, fast, virile blues on which
Hendrix trades hot licks with Youngblood.
Ason The Ghetto Fighters’ furiously funky
“Mojo Man”, Hendrix here is a sideman,
leaving the vocals to others. The original
version of the venomous “Crash Landing” -
finally stripped of its posthumous 1975
overdubs - also has historical value, but yet
more tilts at staples like *Hear My Train A
Comin"" add little to an increasingly swollen
canon. No real lost treasure, then, but some
interesting baubles.

None.
GRAEME THOMSON

ARVE
HENRIKSEN
Solidification

RUNE GRAMMOFON

Melting moments from
Norway's ambient
"NNNM | trumpet genius

10/10 Itsthe Norwegian dream

to walk alone in the

wilderness, with the glories of nature all to
yourself. Arve Henriksen’s three solo albums for
Rune Grammofon attempt to take you there.
Henriksen's electronically augmented horn has
been heard for the past 15 years in improvising
unit Supersilent. But his solo musicis a more
intimate, solipsistic affair, like Jon Hassell's
Fourth World hothouse muffled by a crisp fall
of snow. Pithy exhalations overlay foxed digital
loops and abraded textures, surrounded by
percussive tappings. Henriksen often seems
caught up ina private, shamanistic ritual,
negotiating some psychic channel between the
organic and electronic realms of jazz, free music
and experimental ambient. Not since Miles
Davis has the normally exhibitionist trumpet
been made such an introspective and mournful
lump of brass. Sakuteiki (2001), Chiaroscuro
(2004) and Strjon (2007), collected here over four
vinylsides each, form a continuum, matched in
mood and temperament, packed with mesmeric
moments, perched on the zero-centigrade cusp
where objects can melt and solidify from minute
to minute. Chron, a new LP, collages samples of
Henriksen’s travels - trains, airport hubbub,
notes to selfjammed into his mobile phone's
mic. The urban wilderness is the new frontier.

None.
ROB YOUNG
ج کی‎
MATTHEW
HERBERT
Herbert Complete
ACCIDENTAL
Sumptuous expanded

boxset of early work from
restless sonic pioneer
ЗЛО Aprolific polymath and
underrated innovator in
British electronic music, Matthew Herbert
recently edged closer to National Treasure
status when he was appointed creative director
ofthe BBC's Radiophonic Workshop. Spanning
1996 to 2006, this five-disc boxset includes a
wealth of rarities and buried treasure, notably
collecting together Herbert's early 12-inch
releases on long-defunct underground dance
labels. From the ear-grating glitch-house of
"Robot Radio" to theringpull-funk stomper
"Can Can”, this is conceptual club music par
excellence. On later albums, Herbert's sound
became more conventional even as his
methods turned increasingly experimental.
Hesampled the sound of human skin and hair,
recording in caves and hot air balloons, but
often then finessed the results into anodyne
jazzy house. Diligent but clinical, 100 lbs is the
most disappointingly polite work here, though
the bonus tracks feature some agreeably crazed
remixes. Around The House is better, playful
jazz-funk assembled from domestic sound
sources. A luxuriant vehicle for the dreamy
voice of Herbert's ex-wife Dani Siciliano, Bodily
Functions is the best of the set, a love letter to
classic late-night lounge jazz and bossa nova.
Overall, a superbly rich and diverse archive.
None.
STEPHEN DALTON

Archive

LENA HUGHES

Shuan Of The
Flat Top Guitar

TOMPKINS SQUARE

Lost treasure of folk
guitar exhumed
First given a limited release
A/10 on Power Records in 1965,
and little heard since, the
only album released by Hughes has become
a holy grail for guitar players seeking to
understand the links between parlour music
and traditional folk styles. In the sleevenotes,
Pentangle’s John Renbourn hails the record
as “alost treasure” and goes into detail about
the technicalities of Hughes’ mastery of the
“ethereal harmonic technique” (what sounds
simple is evidently hard to explain, but involves
open-chords, thumb-picking and melodies
eked froma single string). Certainly, Hughes
makes an unlikely axe-hero. She was born іп
1904, and livedin Ludlow, Missouri until her
death in 1998, recording these 11 tunes in
Arkansasin the early 1960s. She also played
fiddle and banjo, and was recorded for the
Smithsonian in 1975. Her repertoire mixed
fiddle-tunes adapted for guitar, and traditional
parlour pieces, which were often reworkings of
popular tunes, hymns or 19th-Century airs.
There's a wiry reworking of "What A Friend We
Have In Jesus”, and a beautiful, halting “Letter
Edged In Black". Renbourn identifies it as a
possible forerunner of AP Carter's rewrite of
*Will The Circle Be Unbroken", a touchstone
of country music. It certainly doesn't sound a lot
like 1965.

None.
ALASTAIR MCKAY
راڪ‎ ee
THE INCREDIBLE
STRING BAND
Live At The
Fillmore 1968
HUX
Elfin princes of psych-

folk in their regal pomp

ӨЛӨ *Allnowin my mind a

dream patchwork, a
cobweb, someone's past, I guess it was mine,”
concludes Robin Williamson in the sleevenotes
to thisimprobable archive find, seemingly
bewildered as to what all the fuss is about.
However, even at 45 years’ distance - and in the
wake ofa free-folk movement which fetishised
and cannibalised their work - this crystal-clear
soundboard tape of he and Mike Heron іп
the midst of their annus mirabilis sounds
unfathomable and new. Far enough out with
the Tollund Man psychedelia of March 1968's
The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter, exemplified
here by the metrical acrobatics of Williamson’s
“Waltz Of The New Moon” and Heron’s amoeba
lullaby “A Very Cellular Song”, this New York
show finds them making another paradigm
shift towards the sitar-spangled wonder of
double album Wee Tam And The Big Huge,
released just eight months later. “Ducks On
A Pond”, “Puppies” and “Maya” thoroughly
justify Stephen Malkmus’ sober assertion
that the ISB were “the greatest band of all
time". “Whatis it that we are part of and what
is it that we are?" asks Williamson, trundling
imperially through an almost finished “The
Half-Remarkable Question”. Even now, one
ofa kind.
None.

JIM WIRTH

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 89

| JAMIROQUAI

Erden On
Planet Earth
Return Of The
Space Er DENT
Travelling Without
Moving sony

8/0 The ‘twatin the hat's
chart-topping first
7/10 trilogy, re-released
The ridiculous hats, the
6/10 garish cords, the shit lyrics,
the fucking didgeridoo —
many found it baffling that Jay Kay emerged as
acid jazz’s only fully-fledged pop star. These
three re-releases suggest Jamiroquai’s huge
international success came from the wealth of
rather good 45s. Four were released from each
LP: all mix fat basslines with surprisingly weird
chord changes, and even the lesser ones left off
comps (like Space Cowboy’s bossa-tinged pairing
“Stillness In Time” and “Half The Man”) have
something to commend them. The problems
are with the LP fillers, which are split between
meandering ballads (“Manifest Destiny”,
“Everyday”), painful didgeridoo workouts
(“Didjerama”, *Didgin' Out”), Lilt-friendly reggae
(“Drifting Along”) and grimly efficient funk
aerobics (based around Toby Smith’s clavinet
and Stuart Zender's busy basslines). Still, “If I
Like 11 Do It” and the rather fine “Whatever It Is,
IJust Can’t Stop” hold up well from the first LP.
Each LP has a disc of remixes, demos
7/10 andlive cuts (including Headhunters/
Kool & The Gang covers). The mixes by 4 To Da
Floor, Morales and Quasar (anda few acoustic
versions/demos) are better than the originals.
JOHNLEWIS

JETHRO TULL

Nothing Is Easy:
| Live At The Isle Of
Wight Festival 1970

SALVO

Never mind the loot,
here's the flute
7/70 According to Tull leader
Ian Anderson’s liner
notes, the Isle Of Wight Festival was a test of
endurance for both performers and punters;
sporadic outbreaks of violence, Joni Mitchell
breaking down in tears onstage, and Jimi
Hendrix “not a happy bunny” about having
to play so late, all contributing to an air of
gloominess. For Tull, however, it was a
personal triumph, riding high on the
momentum of their chart-topping album
Stand Up the previous year, and delivering a
barnstorming set showcasing their transition
from old-school prog blues (“Sunday Feeling")
to more Celtic-driven folk rock ("To Cry You A
Song"). Hereis where Anderson's flute finds
spacein the music to complement rather than
distract from guitarist Martin Barre's crunchy
power chords (*Bouree"), making sense ofa
hybrid sound which, on paper at least, might
have looked like a non-starter. John Evans'
eloquent piano adds further textures, the
arrangements busy but never overblown.
Anderson isn’t sure if the band ever got paid
for their performance, but they did come away
with a vibrantlive album that perfectly
encapsulates their singular style.
Full festival set on DVD, interspersed
6/10 with Ian Anderson interview clips
filmed in 2004.
TERRY STAUNTON

90 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

GEORGE JONES

TONES / The Complete
— A f United Artists
mum w Solo Singles
— ل‎ OMNIVORE

#7 Possum primetime:
J 16early As & Bs from

ОЛО country’s greatest singer
Jones was everywhere in the
early 60s, a hyper-hillbilly paying respects to
elders like Hank Williams and Bob Wills, a
romantic foil pouring out duets with singing
partner Melba Montgomery, a key player in
C&W's fascinating evolution from Hank Williams
to the famed Nashville Sound. His United Artists
period is - arguably - his greatest, sandwiched
in between wildman neo-rockabilly '50s sides
and the gripping, grown-up psychodrama
permeating the Billy Sherrill countrypolitan era.
This snappy set, predating country settling into
leaden predictability, reflects Jones' versatility as
well as country's creative frontier and runs the
gamut from gospel (*He Made Me Free") to
holiday novelties (the rock'n'roll in all but name
“My Mom And Santa Claus"), to the hard-boiled
heartbreak and honky-tonk of some of his
greatest songs - especially “She Thinks I Still
Care" and “Brown To Blue" - plus stellar, vibrant
backing from players like guitarist Grady Martin
and pianist Pig Robbins. *The Race Is On" is
irresistible, but there are many hidden gems,
among them the terrifying murder ballad
“The Open Pit Mine", and "What's Money”,
an irreverent bit of inspiration — written by
Billie Jean Horton - and sung with the gleeful
gusto ofa little kid at Christmastime.
None.

LUKE TORN

REVELATIONS

A walk on the wild side with
country legend George Jones

>» When George Jones began singing his
sodden songs of heartbreak and drink, their
sentiments didn't require method acting.
Hard drinking was part and parcel of life in
hardscrabble Beaumont, Texas circa 405/'505,
and booze-fuelled Jones tales soon multiplied
like a rash of fire ants. Like the one where he
shot out the floor of his tourbus; orwhen he
grabbed (and twisted!) country superstar
Porter Wagoner's penis in a fit of jealousy
(Wagoner was messing around with Jones' wife
Tammy Wynette, Jones' booze-brain claimed).
Then there's the (recurring) lawnmower story:
"Once, when l'd been drunk for several days,"
Jones wrote in his autobiog, "[ex-wife] Shirley
decided she'd make it physically impossible
for meto buy liquor. | lived eight miles from
Beaumont and the nearest liquor store. She
knew | wouldn't walk that far to get booze, so
she hid the keys to every car we owned and
left.” But she forgot one thing. “I imagine the
top speed for that old mower was 5mph. It
might have taken an hour-and-a-half to get to
the liquor store, but get there | did." LUKE TORN

KIRSTY MacCOLL
A New England:
The Very Best Of

SALVO

Magnificent précis of
amuch missed talent
By no means thefirst
Kirsty comp since her
tragic death 12 years ago,
A New England is, nonetheless, the most
pleasing and compete overview yet of one of
the UK's most cherished singer-songwriters.
She may only havereleased five albums during
her 20-year career, but the cherry-picked
highlights of her output showcase an
impressive array of styles, underpinned by
her intuitive sense of melody and trademark
lyrical wit. The evocative pop jangle of *They
Don't Know" and *Terry" rests comfortably
alongside more ambitious excursions into
dance territory (“Walking Down Madison"),
Cuban rhythms (“In These Shoes”) and elegant
country two-steps (“Don’t Come The Cowboy
With Me, Sonny Jim"). Beyond self-penned
offerings, MacColl was always adept at
bringing fresh perspective and personality to
other people's material, such as the Billy Bragg
title track and The Smiths’ “You Just Haven't
Earned It Yet, Baby”, and her superbly
restrained sense of theatricality on Cole Porter’s
“Miss Otis Regrets”, her other, less celebrated
collaboration with The Pogues. Ultimately,
though, it’s the clarity and eloquence of the
portraits she paints with her own words that
are most striking, not least the heart-warming
ode to lovers forced apart, “Soho Square”.
None.

TERRY STAUNTON

Шашы NERVEBREAKERS
Hy Al Menu Hijack The Radio!
| Vintage Vinyl &
Yee. Studio Sessions
oe Ve GET HIP
4а 7
^ р f Handy odds'n'sods set
T wi from darkly drawn

7/0 Dallas über-punks

Duly connecting the dots,
mixing all the right influences present from their
pre-punk, early 1970s inception - eg The
Stooges, МС5, Roky Erickson, and especially the
New York Dolls - Dallas quintet Nervebreakers
were primed once the Pistols, Clash and
Ramones busted down the door (and they served
as opening act for all three). They were stunted
on record, though (just one full-length album,
circa 1980), but this set, rounding up assorted
rare 45s, demos and radio shows, bridges
multiple gaps. With their hard-nosed, mercurial
guitars, borrowed from a legion of '60s garage/
punks and, of course, the Stones, crashing
hooks and songwriter T Tex Edwards' daffy
compositions —“I Love Your Neurosis”; “Why
Am ISo Flipped?” - the Nervebreakers straddled
everything from punk to power pop, old-school
hard rock to irony-laced new wave. Hijack The
Radio! turns up a bunch of gems, from the
ringing cry of the title cut to the disarming pop
of “So Sorry”, the latter showcasing some fine,
racing guitar leads; plus some churning,
shockingly direct punk sentiments (“I Wanna
Kill You”, “My Life Is Ruined”). “My Girlfriend Is
A Rock”, though, is the killer, an overcharged,
incendiary, absurdist slice of pop/punk heaven.
Itis their moment of immortality.

None.
LUKE TORN

RHINO

STEPHEN STILLS

Stills distilled: myriad highlights across 50 years; 25 previously

unreleased cuts. By Luke Torn

DURING THE YEARS
1966 to 1972, Stephen
Stills was the darling
of the New Frontier,
among the hottest
stars of rock’n’roll,
amagnetic,

He was a triple threat:
alethal guitarist, as
likely to peel off
6/10 sizzling electric leads
astoserenade with
gentle, earthen finger-picking; a refined, emotional
songwriter — the instantly recognisable “For What
It’s Worth” struck an apposite anti-authoritarian
nerve in early 1967; an angelic yet gutsy singer,
with a versatile tenor deft at both ethereal
harmonies and down-and-dirty blues.

From the earliest glimmer of the Buffalo
Springfield, down through the salad days of Crosby,
Stills & Nash, and into his underrated stint helming
Manassas - with onetime Byrd Chris Hillman -
Stills was a natural, a good luck charm. After that:
confused decision-making, torpid solo records,
drugs anda long, deteriorative slide.

Carry On, an eons-in-the-making four-disc,
82-track set traversing his entire career, floats
through the eras, highlighting both Stills’ early
brilliance and gamely piecing together — or trying to

—acogent narrative for the erratic, wilderness years.

As with Rhino's parallel boxes on Graham Nash and
David Crosby, it strangely deconstructs the career of
an artist who has always been best showcased as an
ensemble player. It fills a few gaps, points up some

charismatic presence.

outstanding, lost performances, but in playing both
sides of the fence — a glorified best-of on steroids and
a definitive rarities set – it winds up in no-man's
land. Andit misses some golden opportunities.

An earnest, pristine folk tune, “Travelin”, kicks
things off, Stills' fresh-faced voice and eloquent
guitar presentation apparent at age 17. The
coffeehouse standard “High Flyin’ Bird" - from
Stills’ little-heard folk-scare group Au Go Go Singers
— follows, a soaring, intrepid vocal transcending
a hokey arrangement. Other dimly remembered
proto-Stills groups - ie The Continentals and The
Company - are AWOL.

Instead, from here through Disc One, it's
predominantly the familiar tried-and-true,
including 16 oft-anthologised Springfield/CSN
standards, from “Rock’n’Roll Woman" and "Pretty
Girl Why" to "Suite: Judy Blue Eyes" and *You Don't
Have To Cry". TheSpringfield vault remains
virtually unplundered here – a “remix” of
“Everydays” (remixes constitute more than a
quarter ofthe unreleased cuts) is the only so-called
rarity. The epic nine-minute studio “Bluebird,”
surely one of Stills’ finest compositions, remains
absent, despite the recent string of Stills/Young/
Springfield archival releases.

Thehair-raising *No-Name Jam" stems from
the much-anticipated Stills/Hendrix tapes -
long rumored and only recently discovered,
informally recorded circa 1970 - both players
firing electroshock guitar riffs over stock R'n'B
rhythms. Hendrix's stabbing, distorted notes
spar with Stills' long, fluid lines - àla the Stills/
Bloomfield/Kooper 1968 super-session. It's terrific,
but as a solitary cut, a two-and-a-half-minute teaser,

it’s over almost before it begins. Perhaps more from
these sessions will appear under the aegis of
Experience Hendrix.

The downbeat, almost jazzy “Who Ran Away?"
points to the transition from Springfield to
CSNY; “Forty-Nine Reasons”, later to morph into
“49 Bye-Byes”, isa certified find. Aone-man-band
tour de force, with slippery backwards guitars,
churchy piano and a grand roundhouse hook, it’s
heartbreak on tape, and worthy of Stills’ legend.
Both these source from 1968 demos, like Stills’ 2007
Just Roll Tape collection.

Other early-era tracks are moderately arresting,
including “The Lee Shore”, Stills interpreting a
Crosby composition, anda breathless, intimate
12-string demo of “So Begins The Task” (later done-
up Manassas-style). Several stunning 1970s cuts
are equally essential: a spooky, solo live banjo take
of “Know You Got To Run”, paranoiac supreme,
Stills swerving from the icky faux-romanticism
now dominating his writing; an alternative take
of “The Treasure”, originally on Manassas,
is a fine driving rocker; and a mesmerising demo
of “Black Coral”, an oceanic dreamscape with
Neil Young on synthesiser. But that one marks
the beginning of Stills’ creative end.

Yet, while one would expect Carry On to fully
mop up all significant yet-unreleased Stills
(building from CSN’s retro-release Demos and
Rhino’s astounding collection of Manassas
leftovers, Pieces) —it hardly manages the task.
"Ivory Tower”, a gorgeous pop melody with some
electrifying guitar, dating from the late-Springfield/
early-CSN era, is woefully absent. *Everyday We
Live”/“Whole People", a soul-searching Déjà Vu
outtake with signature Stills falsetto, Manassas'
version of *Thoroughfare Gap", and *One Way
Ride", along-missing Stills-Young Band leftover,
were all deserving of a look-see. The list goes on.

Instead, thelast quarter of Carry On tries to shore
up a flagging ship amid subpar album tracks and
bloated live performances. One has to be among
the truest believers to stick around past about the
1977 mark, despite an occasional flash of inspiration
or chops (“Spanish Suite”, the atmospheric “Haven’t
We Lost Enough?”), the law of diminishing returns
kicks in.

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 91

Archive

PULP
Party Clowns

RETROWORLD

Baby photos of Britpop's
saving grace
The contractual situation
surrounding Pulp's early
7/10 yearshas not lentitself
to classy treatment of
their back catalogue; the band's Red Rhino
and Fire recordings have been rehashed
haphazardly for years, but Party Clowns —
aliverecording taken from a televised NME
‘Class Of’91’ show - is something new, even
though the packaging is familiarly crappy.
Eight years after the release of their debut
singleand fifth on the bill - below the Pale
Saints, Levitation, Kingmaker and See-See
Rider - Pulp were getting nowhere slow,
but their dark ages are waning. Stillin his
crimplene phase, Jarvis Cocker espouses
the benefits of the stylophone (“I’m not related
to Rolf Harris in any way," he maintains in
mitigation), but the self-conscious 1970s
overtones cannot mask the sensuous power
of the Separations-era Pulp, Russell Senior's
wah-wah guitar crystallising the funky
Jacques Brel dynamic of “Death II” and
“My Legendary Girlfriend". An embryonic
version of *Babies", though, is the surprise
treat here: a full three years before the group
would play it on Top Of The Pops, it has a
tune, a chorus, and even if it doesn't have
proper verses yet, the countdown has begun.
They'll be bigger than St Etienne: just wait

and see.
EXTRAS: None.
JIMWIRTH
DEL — $i

ROEDELIUS
Selected Pieces
1990 To 2011
MULE MUSIQ

Anindecisive blur of
previously unreleased
flotsam from the
6/10 Krautrockking

From his mid-’60s days in
the Zodiac Free Arts Lab, through his long-term
collaboration with Dieter Moebius in Cluster,
Hans-Joachim Roedelius has pretty solid claim
to being Krautrock royalty. Having originally
formed Cluster as a trio with Moebius and
Tangerine Dream's Conrad Schnitzler (this trio
lineup went out as Kluster), then later adding
Michael Rother of Neu! to the Cluster duo to
form Harmonia, he's been involved in avant-
electronics for decades. But his turn to solo
material has led him down some thorny,
knotted paths, particularly in the past two
decades, which is borne out by Selected Pieces
1990 To 2011. Like much of what he's done over
the past 25 years, it's pretty shaky at times, but
intermittently firing, equally lostin ambient
reverie and stubbed-toe electronic (see the
rattling-off-course beats in *Frolic At Six").
It may be odd to say this about someone who
so often privileges drift-works, but when
Roedelius focuses in on little spoors of melody,
his music really excels — see the charming,
idyllic “Endless”, a three-minute miniature
with a sense of the ‘everyday sublime’, the
ghost in the machine, that unexpectedly
acts as precursor to the palimpsest
electronics of hauntology.

None.

JON DALE

92 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

THE SEEDS
A Web Of Sound

(reissue, 1966)
ACE

Sky Saxon and gang's
long-MIA second album,
with beaucoups extras
ЗӨ Foratimethehottest band
оп Sunset Strip, sneering,
screeching Nuggets prototypes The Seeds
were modern primitives run wild, spinning a
decadent career out from “Pushin’ Too Hard",
maybe the prototype garage/punk single.
Where peers Love and The Doors played more
on the esoteric and the neurotic, The Seeds
were gut-punch R'n'B, slimed-over with sex,
drugs, more sex and all-around creepy-crawly.
A Web Of Sound, their second LP (essentially,
their last stand), both scaled the heights of
garage/punk and exposed its limitations:
latterly, 15-minute sex trip "UpIn Her Room"
gets old fast; in fact, the more they stretched
out - musically and metaphorically - the less
effective they were. Still, the swaggering Seeds
-think Out Of Our Heads-era Stones - laid
down some ofthe most subversive rock'n'roll
ever, and Web has its share: thestutter of
“Tripmaker”; “Just Let Her Go", melody
sputtering into white noise; and *Mr Farmer",
keyboard-pop with a delightfully light touch.
EXTRAS: Exhaustively researched by archivist-
8/10 supreme Alec Paleo, Web features a
mono edition; seven outtakes and alternates,
including an early “The Wind Blows Your Hair",
TheSeeds' freak-folk dance with the devil; and
A Full Spoon Of Seedy Blues, Saxon's Muddy
Waters-endorsed stab at Chicago blues.

LUKE TORN

HOW TO BUY...
ROEDELIUS

Hans-Joachim’s magic machine music

HARMONIA
Musik Von Harmonia
BRAIN,1974

The first of two Harmonia
albums - three, if you include
Tracks & Traces with Eno -
here Roedelius teams up with Dieter Moebius
and Michael Rother, taking the DNA from their
other bands, Cluster and Neu!, andimprovising
brilliantly laissez-faire (non-)grooves over which
Rother’s guitar scythes and reels.

9/10

CLUSTER

Sowiesoso skv,1976
Youcan't go wrong with the
first six Cluster albums, but
Sowiesoso is their most holistic
trip, a gorgeous glide through
gently giddy melodies. No-one else programs
machines in such a joyous and idiosyncratic way.

9/10

ROEDELIUS

Wenn Der Südwind
Weht sky,1981

A lesser-known gem showing
the Cluster fondness for

` caramelised melodic touches,
but placing them in an even more elegant zone.
Songs like the title track play out with great
warmth and teary-eyed radiance.

8/10

JONDALE

DEL SHANNON
Home & Away

NOW SOUNDS/CHERRY RED

'6éos pop idol’s long-
shelved baroque
masterpiece
Perhaps merely an

Stones svengali Andrew
Loog Oldham’s Phil Spector predilections, Del
Shannon was at a crossroads in early 1967, but
ready to prove ongoing relevance. Old-time
stars were fast becoming anachronistic in this
post-Beatles/almost-psychedelic window.
Oldham would soon found Immediate and
manage the Small Faces, but not before guiding
Shannon through this would-be classic, one
that label Liberty didn't even see fit to release
(it's sinceleaked out in dribs and drabs). With
its schizophrenic mix of romantic euphoria and
paranoia, plus an over-the-top mix of strings,
banjo, harpsichord, 12-string guitars, French
horns and dazzling vocal arrangements, Home
& Away is Shannon’s tour de force, think Jan
& Dean’s Carnival Of Sound and Pet Sounds.
Revolving around affairs of the heart, its covers
and originals range from reflective rhythm-
and-pop (“My Love Has Gone”) to sour
harangues (“He Cheated”), all armed with tiber-
melodic hooks. At heart lie its two best songs —
“Led Along”, whose bouncy prance belies its
insecurities, and “Life Is But Nothing”, a dark
confessional that Shannon inhabits witha
typically devastating, broken-hearted vocal.
EXTRAS: Four mono singles cuts, including a
6/10 five "Runaway '67", along with

unseen photos and extensive sleevenotes.
LUKE TORN

SUGAR
A Box Of Sugar

EDSEL

Lavish vinyl set from
Bob Mould’s power trio
Sugar will probably never
be as fondly remembered
ЗӨ asBob Моша” first band,
Minneapolis hardcore trio
Hiisker Dii, but the three records they made
between 1992 and 1994 might well constitute
the peak of Mould’s songwriting career. Hiisker
Dii was troubled, dark and genre-expanding.
But Sugar, primarily, was about melodies,
and Mould sure can write them. Released to
commemorate the 20th anniversary of Sugar’s
debut album (and NME's 1992 Album Of The
Year) Copper Blue, this box is out to please the
completists, collecting all the group's studio
albums on vinyl with a wealth of extras. Copper
Bluestill gleams the brightest, blending Mould's
breezy, increasingly Beatles-inflected melodies
with emotionally coruscating lyrics (*The Slim"
deals with a friend's death from AIDS) and
proving Mould wasn't too proud to crib an idea
ortwo from his followers (the Pixies-ish *A Good
Idea"). Underrated, though, is the follow-up
Beaster. Featuring material from the Copper
sessions, it still feels of a piece, dark and heavy
with religious imagery. Patchy 1994 swansong
File Under: Easy Listening completes the set.
Debutsingle on seven-inch; double
9/10 gatefold vinyl of Besides, collecting
B-sides and 1992 radio session; double gatefold
vinyl of The Joke Is Always On Us, Sometimes
live album; 20-page booklet collecting photos,
memorabilia and interviews.
LOUIS PATTISON

IHE ULTIMATE MUSIC GUIDE

THEBEATLES

YEAH YEAH YEAH! gs

THE BEATLES: THE
COMPLETESTORY

INCREDIBLE INTERVIEWS
— UNSEEN FOR DECADES

|
ANEWLOOK AT I
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=

EVERY FABS ALBUM

PLUS COLLECTABLES | RARE PHOTOS | MAXIMUM BEATLEMAN ЕЕ =
FROM THE MAKERS ОЕ UNCUT m In нп; li |

ee ~-

UNCUT.CO.UK

Archive

Specialist

Out of time: (l-r)
Graham Bond, Dick
Я Heckstall-Smith, Jack

Bruce, Ginger Baker
9

| THE GRAHAM BOND ORGANIZATION

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Origins & Vaadities

REPERTOIRE

Awizard, atrue star

Graham Bond is usually remembered for his magickal interests and his

untimely death, an apparent suicide in 1974. The band he founded, the

formidable Graham Bond Organization — whose output between 1963

and 1967 is celebrated here - is better known for Bond’s more illustrious
| sidemen, notably Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. A year after the pair left

to form Cream in summer 1966, replacement drummer Jon Hiseman and
trusty tenor saxman Dick Heckstall-Smith also quit, joining rival
bandleader John Mayall before themselves founding Colosseum.

Yet it's the GBO's electrifying recordings that should be remembered, a thrilling, unique
brand of British R'n'B, driven by Bond's supercharged Hammond organ. In 1961 Bond was well
established as an alto sax player (with Don Rendell), before he switched allegiance from Charlie
Parker to Ray Charles. Briefly joining Alexis Korner, Bond poached Bruce and Baker from Blues
Incorporated to create the first GBO in 1963, adding budding guitarist John McLaughlin.
McLaughlin's rapid departure and Heckstall-Smith's arrival established the definitive GBO
lineup adopting a daring jazz rock approach that was truly liberating.

Bond's intense, wholehearted playing influenced Brian Auger, Zoot Money, Jon Lord and
Keith Emerson, among many. Bond was an innovator, playing the Hammond through a Leslie
cabinet (pre-Mike Ratledge/Soft Machine) and pioneering the Mellotron on record, road-testing
the cumbersome instrument long before it became a fashionable prog accessory. An
intimidating, unruly looking bunch, the GBO had no obvious frontman or focal guitarist.
Commercial success eluded them, to the point of bafflingly covering Debbie Reynolds'
“Tammy”, but the GBO did record the two exceptional albums The Sound Of 65 and There's
A Bond Between Us.

These underpin this collection, elevated by such delights as Duffy Power's rousing Parlophone
singles (with the GBO) and unheard sessions with Jamaican guitarist Ernest Ranglin. There's
little from the final trio with Heckstall-Smith and Hiseman but that's a contractual quibble
(interested parties should check out Solid Bond). Deserted again by musicians he had nurtured,
suffering depression and battling drug abuse, Bond uprooted to America for a couple of years,
returning to oversee various ungainly bands (Holy Magick, Incantation, Magus) that drew on
a preoccupation with the occult.

Bond re-united with Ginger Baker in the unwieldy Air Force, worked with Pete Brown (who
provides this boxset's affectionate notes) and recorded two LPs that clumsily tried to marry
chants and incantations with free jazz. At his best, though, powering the original GBO,

Bond was а true catalyst for future ideas, still sounding dazzlingly fresh and modern today.
MICK HOUGHTON

9Д | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

SWAMP DOGG

E Lea | D e, е °з TT ^ "- ва
I otal Destruction
T ws 4° E f
| WV T^g v Р 1

Го Your Mind;
Dat Onl
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om tense ^el
(reissues, 1970/ / 1)

ALIVE NATURALSOUND

First reissues for two
astonishing albums
By the time he recorded
Swamp Dogg’s 1970 debut
Jerry Williams Jr had
already had a colourful
career. Debuting asa
piano-playing prodigy in
1954 the series of singles
that comprised his “chitlin
circuit”-based solo career
was supplemented by
writing hits for Lulu and
Gene Pitney, among others. Now combining
Solomon Burke showmanship with Joe Tex's
choleric testifying, Destruction made it clear -
Dogg was a revolutionary creation, responding
to the freedom of black music's new era. Spicing
the deep soul stew with dollops of Frank Zappa
absurdism, the comic-cut auteur was cold-
shouldered by radio, and his observations on
US race relations (“Redneck”) earned hima
place on Nixon’s enemies list. Returning riding
a rodent on the front of sequel Rat On! (once
voted worst cover of all time), his anti-war
agenda stood strong on “Remember I Said
Tomorrow". Outraging Irving Berlin's estate
with his *God Bless America", Williams
continued - as to this day - to be a maverick on
his own outspoken and heartlifting course.
EXTRAS: None.

GAVIN MARTIN

TOY LOVE

Toy Love

Eu CAPTURED TRACKS/
| FLYING NUN

Afounding document
ofthe New Zealand
underground, revisited
The first fruits ofan
international pact between
recently rejuvenated legendary New Zealand
label Flying Nun, and pretenders to the throne
in the US, Captured Tracks, Toy Love resurrects
the early singles, demos and associated junk
from the titular group, one of the formative
acts for the NZ underground. Including in
their membership future Tall Dwarfs (Chris
Knox and Alec Bathgate) and Bats (Paul Kean),
Toy Love have always felt a little bit ‘gilt by
association’ — while these are great pop-punk
tracks, they do seem to pale once you’re
immersed in the wild, rambunctious energy
of the scene they helped foster. (And if
anything, it was really The Clean’s VU-Dylan-
Modern Lovers nexus that really lit the touch
paper.) But that’s not to belittle the 29 songs
compiled here, which feed, with great
intelligence, '60s garage enthusiasm through
the nascent punk explosion, leavened by a
particularly Kiwi sense of humour. Vocalist
Chris Knox hasn't quite found his own voice,
singing with a proto-Anglo sneer, but this helps
gift these songs some of their wayward charm.
And the demos are appealingly primitivist, a
roughshod burn through “Pull Down The
Shades", the anthem of Toy Love's predecessor
group The Enemy, the flammable highlight.
EXTRAS: None.

JON DALE

VARIOUS
ARTISTS

Studio One
lronsides
SOUL JAZZ

Heavyweight collection
of faves and rarities from

8/1 10 JA’s leading label

“Ironside” was one of the
lesser labels under which the productions of
the late Clement ‘Coxsone’ Dodd were released,
though the 18 tracks here were mostly issued
under Dodd’s customary banners of Studio One
and Coxsone. It’s a powerful selection that runs
from Don Drummond's 1963 “Nanny Corner”,
a typical blast from the great ska trombonist,
to Johnny Osbourne’s 1979 “Jealousy, Heartache
And Pain”. As with all great labels a mystique
clings to Studio One’s distinctive sound, in
which thunderous basslines compete with
shrill guitar and organs, woozy brass parts
and muffled drums. The ‘middle’ between
bass and treble is sparse, leaving vocals
naked. The non-initiated are likely to be
underwhelmed (these are records made for
sound systems) but The Gladiators' crepuscular
“Bongo Red" (1971), The Paragons’ unsettling
“Danger In Your Eyes" (1974) or Alton Ellis’
soulful take on Tyrone Davis’ “Сап I Change
My Mind" (1970) arethe lifeblood of reggae
tradition. Add to that the vocal antics of DJs
such as Lone Ranger and Dennis Alcapone
and classy singers like Cornel Campbell
and Marcia Griffiths and you have one hell
ofa compilation, even without the somewhat
overrated rarities.
None.

NEIL SPENCER

VARIOUS
ARTISTS

She's So Fine:
The Rise Of The
Girl Groups

FANTASTIC VOYAGE

Oh yes, it's ladies' night,

3/0 andthefeeling'sright

The most common
definition of the girl group sound is arguably
the early ’60s wave of Shangri-Las, Chiffons and
various permutations in the Phil Spector stable,
but the form’s roots stretch back a further 20
years, to the vocal accompanists of wartime
big bands. She’s So Fine doesn’t begin that
early, but its 95 chronologically sequenced
tracks kick offin the mid-'50s with outfits like
The McGuire Sisters (“Sincerely”) still drawing
on the big band past. As the decade progresses,
the influence of R’n’B increases, Etta James
featuring both as a solo act and leader of The
Peaches, and stories of teenage heartbreak
becomea familiar theme (The Poni-Tails' *Born
Too Late", The Shirelles' *I Met Him On A
Sunday"). It's these songs that paved the way
for the perceived golden era of 1960-63, which
fills Discs Two and Three. Girl groups served
to articulate the emotions of their lovelorn
listeners, who could immediately identify
with the concerns of The Marvelettes' *Please
Mr Postman" or The Crystals' "Uptown". Amid
all the soul-searching and swooning over the
wrong kind of boy, there's space aplenty for
throwaway tracks about dance crazes, so
prepare to cut a rug to the mashed potato,
the wah-watusi and the waddle-waddle.
None.

TERRY STAUNTON

VARIOUS
ARTISTS

Deutsche
Elektronische
Musik 2:

n ЛИТ
German Rock And
Electronic Music
8/10 1972-83

SOUL JAZZ

Krautrock or prog? The choice is yours
The genus of “Krautrock” suggests Teutonic
aesthetes making hypnotic proto-punk and
futuristic synth-pop while dodging Baader-
Meinhof bombs. This 2CD compilation - like
2010's first volume - suggests that Krautrock
is actually a hipster-friendly rebranding of
whatis, effectively, progressive rock from West
Germany. In keeping with the title's promise
of “Elektronische” there is plenty of space-age
electronica (the Radiophonic Workshop sounds
of Michael Hoenig and Pyrolator, the proto-
techno of Asmus Tietchens); and there are also
blasts of Afro-tinged funk (Can’s “Halleluwah”,
Niagara’s trance-like “Gibli”); while the album
ends with Faust’s 12-minute opus “Krautrock”.
But there's also pastoral jazz-rock (Gila and
Bróselmaschine sometimes recall Brit-jazzers
like Neil Ardley) and amusingly ponderous
prog (Popol Vuh and Electric Sandwich). A
revelation comes in the form of AR & Machines,
the alias of'60s boy-band idol Achim Reichel.
On the evidence of the two tracks here,
Reichel’s music is the sound of Status Quo
ingesting several tabs of acid and mutating
into medieval troubadours. Ina good way.
None.

JOHNLEWIS

THE WHO

Live At The Isle Of
Wight Festival 1970

SALVO

First ever CD/DVD combo
oflegendary’Oo show

T A proliferation of live
ОЛӨ documents suggest that
The Who peaked asa
touring band in 1970. This set from the Isle Of
Wight knees-up, following on from Live At Leeds
and the recently issued Live At Hull, freezes
themin their quintessential pose: furiously
windmilling guitarist, bare-chested singer with
shaggy curls, manic drummer and implacable
bassist in skeleton suit. The music itself is
immense. Not least a seismic rendition of Mose
Allison's "Young Man Blues" that arguably
edges out the ...Leeds version for sheer thrills.
Even the new stuff, namely 'Lifehouse"-
intended tunes like *Water" and *I Don't
Even Know Myself”, the latter with a curiously
countrified middle-eight, sound gloriously
intact rather than mere works-in-progress. The
entire run at Tommy is here too, while perhaps
the greatest moment is “My Generation", an
explosive electrified wigout as epic as it is fierce.
This audio-visual treat may be the umpteenth
repackage of The Who at IOW, but it could

well рсе the definitive one.
і “Substitute” and “Naked Eye",

6/10 omitted from the original film, finally
make it to DVD (though both fetched up on
2009’s Blu-ray edition). The former is oddly
muted; the latter an extended tour-de-force
that shows the dizzying sweep of the band at
full pelt.

ROB HUGHES

Archive

COMING
NEXT
MONTH..

= Don’t believe what
you've read: white
men can sing the
dubstep goth blues!
Certainly, that's what
you'll think if you've
spent a while with

the new Depeche
Mode 62 Delta Machine. А record
filled with an examination of the band's many
guises from zeitgeist-aware elder statesmen
to cathartic balladeers and from electronic
songmeisters to bluesy twangers, it's an
interesting if at times exhaustingly emotional
kind of ride.

No stranger to the blues, Eric Burdon
returns witha set that pays homage to his
roots with his new one, Til The River Runs
Dry. Ups, downs, Burdon's seen themall
but somehow come through it with his
magnificent voice intact, and so it's fitting
that his new one hopes to bear testament
to the enduring power of the human spirit.
That spirit sounds...pretty mellow, actually.

Out the back, next to the lawnmower, the
Archive section isn't without its charms
next month, either: Last Splash by The
Breeders, featuring the defining moment
for Kim and Kelley Deal's band, “Cannonball”.
There's the classic Inspiration Information
by Shuggie Otis, and last but not least the
massive Skiffle boxset from
the Bear Family label. Set up
NII your tea chest bass, and get

ARCHIVED

REVIEWS! your twang on. See you there.
JOHN ROBINSON

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UNCUT ..

A thrilling journey exploring Bowie's legacy,
in over 600 interactive pages

» Hundreds of and unseen photos

Every album revisited - including auc
and original album artwork

sfrom NME,
Melody Maker, Uncut and more

music videos

Available on the
E App Store

R^
4

BERT JANSCH

Acoustic Routes

ABSOLUTE DISTRIBUTION

Understated BBC overview reissued. By John Robinson

- - EVEN IN А career that
ACOUSTIC Roures Unfairly afforded him more
" timein the shadows than
the spotlight, it would be
hard to conceive of a time
at which interest in Bert
Jansch was lower than іп
1992. Getting on for two
decades since his last flurry
of top-quality work for
— =| Charisma, and still a
ЗЛО fewyearsshy ofhis
"rediscovery" by a younger
generation of guitarists, it was then that the BBC
broadcast an hour-long film called Acoustic Routes,
focused, pretty much exclusively, on him.
Asthisreissued, feature-length edition ofthe film
unshowily demonstrates, fashions change, but Bert
Jansch did not. An older cousin of BBC4’s Folk
Britannia, Acoustic Routes gives an impressionistic
overview of the singer/guitarists of the British folk
revival like Davy Graham, Wizz Jones, Ralph McTell,
and John Renbourn, touching in with performances
from all of them, generally in duo with Bert. All
illustrate thesame fundamental point: Jansch's
magnificent chops came packaged with a huge
compositional talent, neither of these diminished
by years of epic boozing or his career vicissitudes.
One thing Bert was not, however, was a talker. Nor
do many of his contemporaries seem keen to grasp
the nettle and elucidate just what it is that made Bert

Jansch a cut above. Happily, the film devises an
excellent solution to this: Billy Connolly. Connolly
plays and knows alot about folk music and its
musicians, and as a near-contemporary avoids any
kind of awkwardness with the subjects. As such, he
becomes a kind of de facto narrator of a film that
might otherwise simply feature some not especially
talkative people playing the guitar extremely well.

Hequickly gets to the point. Brandishing a copy
ofthe *blue album", the 1965 debut, Bert Jansch,
Connolly enthuses about how this wasn't just a great
album, it was an essential hip artefact. At the time it
came out, you would, he says, position it at the front
of your stack of albums. You would do your best to
emulate the handsome, glowering presence on the
front ofthealbum, noting the Spartan, bare-boards
setting ofthe cover image. “Back then,” he concludes
warmly, *Glasgow was filled with people with no
furniture in their houses, trying to play ‘Strolling
Down The Highway’...”

The furniture thing becomes something that
Connolly riffs on throughout - noting of the cover of
Bert And John, Jansch’s collaboration with John
Renbourn, he says Bert is now “so wealthy he has
loads of furniture...” Of course, wealthy is another
thing that Bert never was, and here we see 1992
Jansch rehearsing some new music with Renbourn
in the kitchen ofan unprepossessing Hammersmith
flat. These are two men without very much in the
way of material reward for their skills, still operating
at a terrifically high level, Bert continuing to

10 A true classic 9 Essential 8 Excellent
7 Very good 6 Good 4-5 Mediocre 1-3 Poor

Blues summit: Jansch
with one of his heroes
Brownie McGhee

generate music that is immediately empathetic,
the pair of them playing with staggering levels of
feeling and technical grace.

Acoustic Routes doesn’t go in for voice-overed
linear biography at all, and instead tells its tale in
just this kind of understated fashion. Along its
meandering path, the film duly alludes to the
existence of the Jansch/Renbourn jazz/folk
supergroup The Pentangle, evinced by a duet with
Jacqui McShee (extraordinary tie-dye, madam), but
doesn’t tell you an awful lot about what that might
have been like. It finds Bert (excitingly, in the
company of Anne Briggs) returning to the sight of
Edinburgh’s Howff club and playing a fantastic
version of “Black Waterside”, and then giving a
barbed but still vague answer to the question of how
he feels about Jimmy Page essentially nicking that
arrangement and crediting himself for it. There's a
US segment which yields a great performance of
“Heartbreak Hotel” with Albert Lee and a moving
ifuneventful blues summit with Brownie McGhee,
one of Bert’s heroes.

The offhand tone of the thing is probably best
captured in a London sequence where Bert talks
about Les Cousins, the London folk scene and Bob
Dylan'sfleeting appearance on itin 1963. It catches up
with Wizz Jones, Al Stewart and Bert - three guysin
theironed jeans and white tennis shoes stage of their
lives. They havea chat anda bit ofa play with Martin
Carthy, and walk the Soho streets they knew as young
men. They talk Paul Simon and Jackson C Frank.

“T took Bob Dylanin there,” Bert then tells Wizz,
indicating a pub function room. “Did he play?” asks
Wizz. “Nah,” says Bert, “he was too stoned...” The
pair then drop into a guitar shop to buy some strings.

Fora lesser musician, in a more on-message film,
this might all have been a rather bigger deal. Not for
Bert Jansch: aman whose head wasn’t easily turned,
and someone who focused on what he needed to do,
and then simply went about getting it done.

EXTRAS: To coincide with the DVD release, 15
previously unreleased tracks from the film will be
released on CD and vinyl, and for digital download.

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 99

By MICHAEL BONNER

Terri Hooley’s tale of punk and
the Troubles is told, Nicole
Kidman goes Gothic, we meet an
adorable robot, and Snoop Dogg
gets serious (and seriously stoned)

TOKER Hollywood has never quite

known what to do with Park Chan-wook.

On the face of it, a director of extremely

violent genre films like Sympathy For
Mr Vengeance and Oldboy, dig a little deeper
however, and Park's output isn't that easy to
qualify. His films are violent, yes, and often in
the most grisly sense possible, but they are also
astonishing to watch - beautifully styled and
composed - and undercut with a rich sense of
the absurd.

Recent attempts to remake 2003's Oldboy,
arguably his most famous film, have seen off a
couple of directors (including Steven Spielberg)
and leading men from Christian Bale to Will
Smith. Spike Lee's version, starring Josh Brolin, is
due later this year. In the meantime, Stoker is the
Korean filmmaker’s English-language debut.
Though the violence of Park’s earlier films is
dialled down - though fans of “the hammer
scene” in Oldboy will enjoy some business here
involving a pencil - a sense of high camp
prevails. When India's father Richard diesin a car
accident, sheis surprised when Charlie, an uncle
she never knew existed, turns up for the funeral.
“This is Richard's brother,” India is told. *He's
come back." From where — and why - are the
film's great mysteries, playfully teased out by
Park and the screenwriter — Prison Break actor
Wentworth Miller. The vibe hereis a ripe mix of
Gothic fairy tale, Almodóvar camp and Hitchcock
melodrama. Many familiar genre tropes are
in evidence - there's a sprawling house, a
mysterious nanny and a distant mother, all
filtered through India's personal and sexual
awakening. Matthew Goode's Charlie is a
handsome, charming presence - but he's
impossible to read. He smiles easily, but he has
dark, shark-like eyes that give nothing away. And
what exactly does he want with his dead brother's
belt? As Evelyn, Nicole Kidman revisits the role of
Grace from The Others — another neurotic mother
rattling round a rambling old house. Mia
Wasikowska, meanwhile, leads the film as India
- her dark hair and pale skin bringing to mind
one of those creepy ghost girls you get skulking
round basements in Japanese horror films. The
play between the three leads is terrific — a bit
bonkers, quite creepy, often over-the-top.
Brilliantly, this is the only house still standing
where the freezer sits in the furthest corner of
an extremely badly lit basement.

MITTIN

» Good Vibrations There already exists a
hefty body of work documenting the adventures
of record label bosses from the punk era and
beyond - but the accomplishments of Terri Hooley
have so far been largely unrecorded. Hooley, а
Belfast native, isa man with impressive rock
credentials: he berated Bob Dylan for not
withholding his taxes in protest at the Vietnam
war (Dylan told him to “fuck off"), and on a visit
to London found himselfin a fight with John
Lennon: “There was some talk of money being
sent to the IRA and I chinned him. He hit me
back,” Hooley said. In the mid-’70s, Hooley
opened a record shop, Good Vibrations, on
Belfast's Great Victoria Street and launched a
sister label in 1978. While it’s fair to say that
Hooley's greatest musical success is Good
Vibrations’ fourth single – “Teenage Kicks" by
The Undertones - his broader achievements are
perhaps harder to calculate. Both shop and label
offered a valuable creative outlet for the city's
teenagers during the worst of the Troubles, with
Hooley's enthusiastic commitment to Northern
Ireland's punk scene providing a powerful
counter-argument to joining the paramilitaries.
It's this depiction of Belfast in the 1970s –
commendably understated, but resonant
throughout - that adds an extra level to Lisa
Barros D'Sa and Glenn Leyburn's film. For much

of the time, Hooley's tale is, while enjoyably
ramshackle, a familiar one of skanky pubs, transit
vans, snooty major label executives and poorly
attended gigs. As befitting a label boss operating
in the independent sector during the late ’7os,
Hooley combines shameless self-promotion

and committed idealism with woeful business
acumen. A benefit gig is intended to raise funds
for the shop and label, but Hooley’s generously
proportioned guestlist ensures it ends up making
aloss. As Hooley, Richard Dormer is а lively, gangly
mass of teeth and relentless optimism, dedicated
to bringing “one love to the people of Belfast”.

>» Reincarnated “I'm ata point in my career
now when I have to say something,” Snoop Dogg
explains to Bunny Wailer, as the two men stoke
up some fruity Californian weed. Reincarnated
finds Snoop at a transitional period in his life. He
has just turned до, but arguably of greater impact
is the recent death of his school friend and
collaborator Nate Dogg. In an introspective frame
of mind, Snoop sees parallels between himself
and Bob Marley - “not just the weed, [but] the
struggle, the love, the peace, the power" – and
heads to JA to get a “real thorough understanding
of reggae, Rastafari and the whole lifestyle",
while also recording an album at one of the
island's high-end residential studio complexes.

STOKER

Director Park
Chan-wook FS
Starring Mia

VIBRATIONS
= Directors Lisa
Barros D'Sa, Glenn

REINCARNATED
Director Andy
Capper

Starring Snoop

Wasikowska, G Leyburn Dogg, Bunny Wailer
Matthew Goode = Starring Richard Opens March 22
Opens March1 Dormer Certificate 18
Certificate 18 Opens March 29 8/10
8/10 Certificate 15

7/10

100 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

4 188 ROBOT AND

ROBOT...
FRANK

e Langella, Susan

THE SPIRIT OF '45 THE SPIRIT OF

FRANK '45
Director Jake Director Ken Loach
Schreier Starring Tony Benn

Opens March15
Certificate U

- 8/10

Starring Frank

Sarandon
Opens March 8
Certificate 12A

7/10

Snoop Doggtakes
atripinthe Blue
Mountains

Directed by former NME staffer Andy Capper,
Reincarnated is an intimate film about Snoop’s
personal journey to becoming Snoop Lion - an
epithet bestowed upon him by Bunny Wailer, a
man for whom weed is apparently best smoked
through a device resembling a hollowed-out
carrot. Throughout the film, Snoop finds
resonances with his own life. A visit to Kingston’s
beleaguered Tivoli Gardens neighbourhood
prompts memories of gangbanging on the
eastside of Long Beach - *21st Street block East
Side LBC!" Elsewhere, a nocturnal trip to
Trenchtown with Damian Marley sets Snoop
musing on the parallels between Marley Snr,
Wailer and Peter Tosh and his own friendship
with Nate Dogg and Warren G. But this isn't just a
film about one man's path to spiritual fulfilment
and the recording of an album. Itis also a

film where some men get deeply stoned –

that is less concerned with the problems facing
their own generation and instead addresses
issues of ageing, dementia and family
responsibilities. Although, there is a robot
involved. We are in the “near future". Frank —
played by Frank Langella ina rare but welcome
lead role ~ is living out his autumn years іп
pretty, upstate New York. A retired cat-burglar
with a lengthy prison record, he has a fractious
relationship with his two children, hippie-dippy
Madison (Liv Tyler) and yuppie attorney Hunter
(James Marsden). Frank suffers from “episodes of
disorientation”. Fearing for his father’s condition,
Hunter buys Franka talking robot - like Asimo –
who will cook, clean and generally look after
Frank. At first scornful of Robot — *He's going to
murder me in my sleep!” — Frank soon realises the
little chap can help him on his latest escapade.
Pitched somewhere between sci-fi movie,
odd couple comedy and old-school character
movie, Robot And Frank has many gifts — not
least Langella himself, whose gentle authority
carries the film. His would-be courtship with
local librarian Susan Sarandon is warmly played.
But critically, he convincingly handles the film’s
central relationship between Frank and the robot
(voiced by Peter Sarsgaard). Robot sidekicks in
film - R2D2, Twiki, Teddy in AI — are, basically,
annoying. But it says much about Langella’s skill
at his craft that he can even make us feel well
disposed towards this little fella.

> The Spirit Of 45KenLoach's
documentary opens, as is traditional when
discussing the end of the Second World War, with
grainy newsreel footage of cheering crowds in
Trafalgar Square and families reunited as
servicemen disembark from trains, planes and
troop ships, kitbags slung over their shoulders.
Loach’s film, however, is less concerned with the
post-war celebrations and instead sets out to
document the progressive socialist ideals of the
post-war years as pioneered by Clement Attlee’s
1945-'51 Labour government. Through a mix of
archive film and contemporary interviews with
retired miners, nurses, railwaymen, steelworkers
and union officials – alongside a handful of
historians and economists – Loach delivers a film
that persuasively casts the workers as very much
the heroes of the hour alongside forward-thinkers
like Attlee, Aneurin Bevan and Herbert Morrison.
Looping back to show the privations of the'30s -
“where everything was run by rich people for rich
people" - the film then moves through the Attlee
government's far-reaching nationalisation
programme and the creation of the NHS: “a list
of objectives you might have in wartime,”

often with hilarious comments Tony
consequences. A Benn. Critically,

j i hen th
ré m The creepy, bonkers қиса:
Mountains with some ч 1 ч The Spirit Of >
toothless dudes who S toker 1S а ripe ТИХ н n Don
look like pirates d , revolutionary
provides some great of Gothic fairy tale, Bevan's plan for free,
stoner comedy - 7 universal healthcare
Daz Dillinger rolling Almodóvar camp and was — “people got
around on the floor, А spectacles for the
too stoned to get up, Hitchcock melodrama first timein their

is priceless. The film is lives," saysone
particularly strong on former doctor. For

context, with Capper getting good interviews
with Snoop, commendably honest about his time
as a gangbanger, his relationship with Death Row
boss Suge Knight, the death of Tupac Shakur and
his own criminal activities. “I’m wise, ora bit
wiser,” says Snoop, with a smile.

» Robot And Frank Unusually for a pair of
first-time indie filmmakers, writer Christopher
Ford and director Jake Schreier have madea film

its final act, the film jumps to 1979 and the
election of Margaret Thatcher. The closure of

the country’s indigenous industries and the
break-up of the public sector under successive
Tory administrations, Loach suggests, has done
much to hasten England’s decline. Far from
polemicising, though, Loach goes about his
business quietly, foregrounding the remarkable
stories of these men and women who, essentially,
helped build modern Britain.

Films

Also out...

THE BAT

Found Mr eco- € from Barry
Levinson, with something nasty in the water
playing havoc with the residents of a small

coastal town.
BROREN SUE

Sdlo ат Y байа for Allen Hughes,
who casts Mark Wahlberg as a private eye
who discovers some serious shit on dodgy
New York mayor, Russell Crowe.

CAESAR MUST DIE
A production of Julius Caesar is mounted in
an Italian maximum-security prison. Paolo

and Vittorio Taviani direct.

Oz THE GREAT AND POWERFUL
Prequel basically: to the MGM classic;
Sam Raimi directs James Franco as a
smalltime circus magician who is
transported over the rainbow.

JamesFranco
in Oz...

PARKER

Јаков Statham gets to live out his Lee Marvin
fantasies playing Parker, Donald E Westlake's
anti-hero first seen in Point Blank.

SIDE EFFECTS

M A RC

Latest ides Scar Soderbergh: thriller with
Rooney Mara having problems with some
prescription drugs.

SHELL

OPE N v А RC ы

Strong dabut from: Scott Graham. A father
and daughter live in a rundown petrol station
inaremote part of the Scottish Highlands.

WELCOME TO THE PUNCH

PENS MARCH15
Тати McAvoy - who does stuff like this now
- faces off against MarkStrong in Brit crime
flick. Men of a certain stripe - Peter Mullan,

Johnny Harris - co-star.
т ЗЕЕ AE THE END

Аангая indie comedy a drug sendsusers
across dimensions. Bad news. Clancy
Brown - the Kurgan from Highlander -
co-stars. Good news!

TRANGE

Post- Eois (m Boyle's artheist
thriller finds James McAvoy and Vincent

Cassel after a lost painting.

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 101

Trans-Europe Express/
Metal On Metal/Abzug
Franz Schubert
Endless Endless
Europe Endless
The Hall Of Mirrors
Showroom Dummies
Autobahn
Geiger Counter
9 Radioactivity

) The Robots
1 Spacelab
12 The Model
13 NeonLights
14 The Man-Machine

5 Numbers

5 Computer World

Computer Love

18 It’s More Fun To Compute

Home Computer
) Tour De France 1983

21 Tour De France 2003

22 Planet Of Visions

23 Boing Boom Tschak
24 Techno Pop
25 Musique Non Stop

102 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

KRAFIWERK

The man-machine reveals its genius - and its human side...

| VEN BY THEstandards ofa

19th Century Grand Tour,

Kraftwerk's stately progress
~~ around the world's salons,
| museums and culturally
repurposed temples of industry has
become somewhat leisurely of late.
Summer 2013 might seea return tothe
festival mainstream, but the past 12
months have found them focused on
more elevated residencies, in New
York’s Museum Of Modern Art, the
Kunstsammlung gallery in their
hometown of Düsseldorf and, now,
London's Tate Modern.

If one Kraftwerk song works as a
mission statement for this campaign, it
is 1977's "Europe Endless", a catalogue
of *parks, hotels and palaces" and
"elegance and decadence" which
transforms a mundane touring band
into refined cultural ambassadors. It
captures the romance and mystique of
upper-class travel before the wars,
while simultaneously being an anthem

of pan-European idealism: an idealism
that now, like so many of Kraftwerk's
more optimistic visions of the future,
feels tinged with melancholy and
unfulfilled promise.

"Europe Endless" is the opener of
Trans-Europe Express, notionally the
album being showcased at tonight's
show. In the unlikely event you missed
the media frenzy (as the gigs coincide
with the return of My Bloody Valentine,
acertain breed of music journalist have
had their best week in years), Kraftwerk
are fastidiously working through their
back catalogue, one album at each
show, over eight nights. Their first three
albums, Krautrock puritans will note,
have long been disowned, or at least
discreetly ignored.

There are signs, though, that Ralf
Hiitter, Kraftwerk’s enduring father
figure, is keen to subvert the formula, a
little. Fora man whose reputation has
been built on rigorous structures, on
making creative whims at least appear

superseded by mechanical
functionality, the decision to begin
with the second half of Trans-Europe
Express feels mildly shocking. More
surprisingly still, when “Europe
Endless” is eventually performed, itis
blighted by an uncharacteristic human
frailty, as Hiitter’s voice slips out of
sync with the programmed harmonies.

Later, in the 90-minute hits selection
which follows Trans-Europe Express,
Hiitter and his three fellow operators
(l-r: Henning Schmitz, Fritz Hilpert and
new boy Falk Grieffenhagen) will
betray a preference for 1978’s The Man-
Machine and 1981’s Computer World by
playing virtually all of those LPs. First,
though, there is one rare treat from TEE:
the stark tones of “The Hall Of Mirrors",
reverberating from every angle of the
Turbine Hall, as the pristine Surround
Sound installation shows its worth.

One of the eerier songs in Kraftwerk's
catalogue, “The Hall Of Mirrors” marks
a rare moment where sound design,

GETTY IMAGES, DARA MUNNIS

Showroom dummies:
modelperformers
Kraftwerkat Tate Modern

including a harpsichord-like new counter-
melody, is left to fend for itself without the
assistance of the 3D visual extravaganza.
Perhaps the lyrics — “He fellin love with the
image of himself/And suddenly the picture
was distorted" — would make any
interpretation too crass? Grieffenhagen,
the band’s video technician, merely
practises a faint smirk, at once imperious
and mischievous, that he seems to have
inherited from Florian Schneider.
Kraftwerk’s illustrious co-founder,
Schneider hung up his bodysuit in 2008.
Soon enough, Grieffenhagen is back at
what just about constitutes work. A
relatively cursory reading of Trans-
Europe Express takes less than half
an hour, and the 3D spectacle is
under way again with a magnificent
"Autobahn". If “Europe Endless"
revealed an unexpected fallibility to
the man-machine, the second section of
"Autobahn" feels like Kraftwerk are
improvising, after a fashion.
Henning Schmitz appears to
rather forcefully tamper -
with the mix - thereis x -
visible exertion,
involving what \
are plausibly
knobs and
faders - to create
something more
spontaneous and visceral than
the myth of Kraftwerk would suggest.

Itis mainly unclear, of course, what the
quartet do for most of the two-hour show.
Theintroduction to *Tour De France 1983"
sees them theatrically joining in on their
consoles one at a time, as if manually
constructing the fanfare, while *Musique

Non Stop" concludes with each performing

asolo, of sorts, before exiting with a bow.
But these flourishes feel like a quaint and
sweet pantomime of musical orthodoxy,

rather than evidence ofa ‘live’ performance
that rock fans fixated on authenticity might

understand. The thing is, while trying to
unpick Kraftwerk’s secrets might be

diverting, aneed for verifiable, tactile proof
of musicianship is totally missing the point.

Over 40 years, Kraftwerk’s genius and
influence has taken many forms, but none

so potent as the idea that synthesised music

can carry just as much emotional heft as
one earnest guy with an acoustic guitar.
That poignancy illuminates the likes of
“Neon Lights" and “Radioactivity”, the
latter partially translated into Japanese to
better reflect the horrors of Fukushima. As
the litany of surveillance agencies іп
“Computer World” implies, Kraftwerk’s
attitude to progress has always been more
complex, more ambivalent, than their
stereotype as Tomorrow’s World pin-up
boys would suggest.

Kraftwerk’s astounding musical
prescience also comes to the fore on the

Computer World material: “Computer Love”

and, especially, “Numbers” sound more
than ever like critical precursors of techno,
not least because these versions have only
needed marginal tweaks to update them.
Again, though, it’s just as easy to heara
musical sensibility that stretches
backwards as well as forwards, in the

melodic grandeur that references European

classical tradition as well as minimalist
systems music.

Less than a thousand people are seeing
Kraftwerk at each of these shows - so few
that the chaos and disappointment which
accompanied the tickets going on sale last
December feels more comprehensible, if

not excusable. The number also feels pretty

surreal when one considers that the Irish
indie band, Two Door Cinema Club, are

playing to a crowd five times as large over in

Brixton Academy on the same night that
Trans-Europe Express is performed.

Asa consequence, Kraftwerk's multi-
media fantasiais both monumental and
intimate. When the audience gasps at a
3D satellite, looming out ofthe backdrop
during “Spacelab”, they can also see the
fleeting and satisfied smile that crosses
Fritz Hilpert’s generally impassive face.
They can watch Ralf Hiitter’s strenuously
throbbing right leg during “Planet Of

Visions”, and consider that even the

architect of this conceptual behemoth

finds it hard to keep robotic poise
in the face of such compelling
dance music. And they can
be awed by an opulent
celebration of one of pop’s
greatest bands, where
it’s possible to see how
the human automata
work up close.
JOHN MULVEY

John Murry

Americana’s toughest new star returns
to London

"THE LAST TIME John Murry played London in 2006, he
was promoting an album he'd recently released with his
. songwriting partner at the time, Bob Frank. World Without

End was a blood-soaked collection of newly written murder
ballads - *a bunch of songs about killing people," as he puts it at
one point tonight, his gaunt appearance making it look like he's
actually just got out of prison after serving hard time for one of
the more harrowing crimes described on the record.

With his penitentiary pallor, institutional haircut and the scrawny
frame of someone whose only recent exercise has been jailyard laps
іп the shadow of a machine gun tower and a high wall topped with
razor wire, Murry looks in fact like someone you might see in a Jim
Marshall shot of cheering cons at a Johnny Cash concert in Folsom
orSan Quentin. The people onstage with him, meanwhile, look
lesslike bandmates than former cellmates, one tough crew.

After along time lost to a near fatal heroin addiction, the now
sober Murry last year released The Graceless Age, an album that
was deeply textured, dense with layers of guitars, keyboards,
synthesisers, strings, percussion, backing vocals and electronic
distortion. The sound of itis too rich to replicate tonight, the band
instead emphasising the raw emotions of its songs via a brutal
dismantling of the record's ornate textures. This works well for
the most part, especially on the slow-fever burn of “Things We Lost
In The Fire” and the ominous chug of “California”. The elegant
ballads “Southern Sky” and “The Ballad Of The Pyjama Kid”
are less well-served, however, by sounding like something off
Tonight’s The Night.

There’s a startling cover of Sparklehorse’s “Maria’s Little Elbows”,
though, and a draining version of the epic “Little Colored Balloons”,
whose evocation of druggy squalor is as grim as Lou Reed's
"Street Hassle". Dig those encores, too: raucous takes on The
Rolling Stones’ “Cocksucker Blues" and Townes Van Zandt's
“Waitin’ Around To Die”.

ALLAN JONES

Jailsong: John
Murry onstage
inLondon

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 1

GUS STEWART

Live

Children’s choir
notin shot...
Nick Caverips
itupinLondon

NICK

z |

АМЕ &
THE BAD SEEDS

HER MAJESTY’S THEATRE, LONDON, FEBRUARY 10, 2012

O Children! Old Nick recruits some little helpers to
launch Push The Sky Away

&& W, ГУЕ TOTALLY fuckin’
forgotten how this goes.”
There isn’t an ideal time
for any performer to utter
this admission, but the climactic
furies of “Stagger Lee”, summoning
the murderous rage ofa priapic
drifter, are an especially incongruous
backdrop. At this point, however,
the crowd is inclined to forgive
Nick Cave: it's the last song of along
show, two-hours-plus of colossal
melodrama. Aided by prompts from
thosein thestalls who know the last
verse better than he does, Cave gets
his eternally extraordinary band to
the end of “Stagger Lee", and the
standing ovation they've earned.
Tonight's show is the first of four
launch events - Paris, Berlin and Los
Angeles will follow — for The Bad
Seeds' 15th album, Push The Sky
Away. Proceedings are fanfared by
ashort film on the making of the

104 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

album, which was recorded amid
the rustic splendour of La Fabrique,
a studio housed in a 19th-Century
Provencal mansion. La Fabrique’s
racks of classical vinyl and antique
books area setting that suits The Bad
Seeds, who now resemble an amiable
mob of gangsters turned professors.
Cave, as ever, is gruffly insightful:
“We don’t really know what we
want,” he says, “but we know what
we don’t want - those known entities
in songwriting, which we're
desperately trying to get away from."
On that score, and many others,
Push The Sky Away may be
considered a mission accomplished.
The first Bad Seeds album since the
departure of founding mainstay
Mick Harvey is, inevitably, a strange
one – it's often gentle, occasionally
whimsical (Cave's definitively
Australian deadpan has always been
anunderrated component of his

work). The first half of tonight’s show
consists of Push The Sky Away in its
entirety, in order. “It has kind of got

a narrative... surge," explains Cave.
The Bad Seeds are less restrained
onstage than on the surprisingly
decorous record, unleashing
spectacular hell on “Jubilee Street”
and the “annoyingly long” (Cave’s
words) “Higgs Boson Blues”.

The Bad Seeds touring Push The
Sky Away differ slightly from the
personnel that made the album.
Regular drummer Thomas Wydler
isill: hisseat will be warmed by
returning prodigal Barry Adamson,
who played bass on the first four Bad
Seeds albums. Continuing as Mick
Harvey's replacement on guitar is
Ed Kuepper, formerly of The Saints
and Laughing Clowns. Behind them
tonightare two female backing
vocalists, a string quintet and The
New London Children's Choir.

SETLIST

We NoWhoUR

Wide Lovely Eyes
Water's Edge

Jubilee Street
Mermaids

We Real Cool

Finishing Jubilee Street

Higgs Boson Blues
Push The Sky Away
10 FromHer ToEternity
n Red Right Hand

12 OChildren

13 The Ship Song

14 Jack The Ripper

15 Deanna

16 Your Funeral My Trial
17 Love Letter

18 The Mercy Seat
ENCORE:

19 StaggerLee

O ON om iA WN | =

The presence of the latter
proves a challenge to Cave's
characteristically mordant stage
patter. His introduction to Push
The Sky Away's "Mermaids" ends
up going, “This song is kinda sad.
Year after year, it just gets sadder
and sadder. Er... don't listen to me,
kids." The warbling infants are
dispatched during the second half
ofthe show, allowing The Bad Seeds
to set unrestrained about such
after-the-watershed material as
“Your Funeral My Trial”, “Jack
The Ripper” and “The Mercy Seat”.
It’s nearly 30 years since the first
Bad Seeds album: it’s a glorious
privilege to be able to take them
for granted.
ANDREW MUELLER

ee UNCUT LIVE

TEL: 020 3148 2873 FAX: 020 3148 8160
SJM CONCERTS PRESENT

اا

"2106865

THE GATHERING SOUND TOUR

WITH VERY SPECIAL GUESTS

ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN

APRIL 2013
SAT 13 Glasgow SECC SAT 20 London O2 Academy Brixton
MON 15 Newcastle O2 Academy MON 22 Bournemouth O2 Academy JULY
TUE 16 Sheffield O2 Academy TUE 23 Leeds O2 Academy

Bristol Col Hall Birmingham O2 Acad
mislondonOzAcdemyBddon ai Manchester Arena мео 17 BIRMINGHAM LG ARENA

THU 18 MANCHESTER ARENA

GIGSANDTOURS.COM | TICKETMASTER.CO.UK 0844 811 0051 | 0844 826 2826

IP SOUNDCHECK ROXAGESAVAIABE VA WH EARS CON NE FRI 19 LONDON WEMBLEY ARENA

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SJM CONCERTS & LIVE NATION
BY ARRANGEMENT WITH X-RAY PRESENTS

THE
SMASHIN
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MONSOLD OuT JULY
MANCHESTER ACADEMY
TUESDAY 02 JULY
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THE ALBUM ‘OCEANIA’ OUT NOW
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FEATURING THEIR CLASSIC SONGS AND MUSIC FROM
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New album "MACHINERIES OF JOY" released on April 01 on Rough Trade Records.

Аййсом LIVE ANNOUNCEMENTS & PRIORITY BOOKING REGISTER FREE FOR ADDED BENEFITS FIND US ОМ 59

UNCUT LIVE iINAALAALLLALLLEALLITALLLAALLLLULLTAALLLALLLAALLUALLLLALLLL ALL ALLLNLLLHLLLTL LLLA

For tickets to any UK gigs, tours or festivals please call the 24-hour Uncut Ticketline on 0870 160 1600

AGMP prevents

1 & SENBLA presents

First shows since the 1980's for
Washington DC's Go-Go Pioneers

Friday 15 March
iate Saturday 16 March

DOORS 7PM. NEAREST TUBE: HIGHBURY & ISLINGTON

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agmp.co.uk

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Wednesday

24 April

Nearest Tube:
Great Portland Street

JAH WOBBLE
& BILL SHARPE

"Kingdom of Fitzrovia"

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ISLINGTON
ASSEMBLY HALL

B. rest tubes Highbury & Islington
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Friday 25th October

Î | LONDON CLAPHAM GRAND

BMX BANDITS | THE WOODENTOPS

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HAWKLORDS | SECRET AFFAIR

| 24 hour ticketline:
| 08444 771000

Buy online:
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NOW IN THE WEST END

METROPOLIS MUSIC PRESENTS

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PERFORMING THEIR АСС, bi roii Baro and

(THE ALBUM IN IT'S ENT

LONDON DUKE OF YORK’ S THEATRE |

ST MARTIN'S LANE, WC2N 4BG

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EXTRA DATES ADDED DUE TO PUBLIC DEMAND
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Tickets: 03000 680400
Buy online: www.forestry.gov.uk/music

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Plus Special Guest

Lucy Rose

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BIRMINGHAM 02 ACADEMY

BRISTOL COLSTON HALL

LONDON HAMMERSMITH APOLLO

MANCHESTER APOLLO

GLASGOW 02 ACADEMY
TICKETMASTER.CO.UK LIVENATION.CO.UK

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A Live Notion presentosion by amongemerm with (TB

THE LOST ARE FOUND TOUR

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GLASGOW O2 ABC2
BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY 3
MANCHESTER ACADEMY 3
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TUE
WED
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15 APR SOUTHAMPTON GUILDHALL
_16 APR LONDON HÆ "SMITH APOLLO ©
EXTRA DATE ADDED DUE TO PHENOMENAL DEMAND - |
7 APR LONDON HAMMERSMITH APOLLO 7
19 APR WOLVERHAMPTON CIVIC HALL
20 APR MANCHETZUIZU92 APOLLO
21 APR GLASGQVXTTUACADEMY

TICKETMASTER.CO.UK | LIVENATION.CO.UK

NEW ALBUM 'NORTH' OUT NOW | MATCHBOXTWENT Y.COM
A LIVE NATION PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH ITB

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TUESDAY 18 JUNE

BUY ONLINE AT С LIVÉNATION.CO.UK

TEL: 020 3148 2873 FAX: 020 3148 8160

PLUS SPECIAL Guests JONNFOxx And

APRIL 2013
28 MARGATE WINTER GARDENS
BIRMINGHAM SYMPHONY HALL

NOTTINGHAM ROYAL CONCERT HALL
IPSWICH REGENT THEATRE
LONDON ROUNDHOUSE

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OXFORD NEW THEATRE
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LEEDS ACADEMY

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BUY ONLINE AT TICKETMASTER.CO.UK LIVENATION.CO.UK

ELECTRIC
PET SHOP BOYS
LIVE

18.06.13
London,The O2

20.06.13
Manchester Arena

пог presenton
ciation with WMI
Buy online at

ticketmaster.co.uk
livenation.co.uk

petshopboys.co.uk

= NATIO

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13TH JUNE 2013 - XOYO MON 25 MARCH 2013 THEKLA 0845 413 4444 queer
THE LEXINGTON LONDON New double album 'Fandango' out on April 29 via Memphis Industries

A SCHONEBERG CONCERTS & DHP PRESENTATION BY
retroste Tickets and more from www.thephoenixfoundation.co.nz

24 HOUR BOOKING LINE: 08444771000 www.ticketweb.co.uk www.wegottickets.com/SchonebergConcerts www.facebook.com/SchonebergConcertsUk

\!ЇЇ ЇЇ ЇЇ! UNCUT LIV

TEL: 020 3148 2873 FAX: 020 3148 8160
SJM CONCERTS PRESENT

Country to Country

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METROPOLIS MUSIC PRESENT

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0844 811 0051 GICSANDTOURS.COM 0844 477 2000 TICKETWEX.COK
020 77348922 STARGREENCOM

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TUESDAY 26TH MARCH
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HMV INSTITUTE

BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB ire А e
- ACADEMY BRIXTON
т mier FRIDAY 29TH MARCH
PINE NOTTINGHAM ROCK CITY
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Brand New Album Released Spring 2013

Presented by SJM Concerts in association with 13 Artists

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academy events present

ACADEMY EVENTS present

SIMON TOWNSHEND

17 LONDON 0; Academy? Islington (4LBUM LAUNCH)
19 SHEFFIELD 02 Academy?

21 NEWCASTLE O Academy?

JULY 2013

01 LIVERPOOL 0) Academy2

Box Office: 0844 477 2000
Buy online: www.ticketweb.co.uk

Monday 13th May
O2 Shepherds Bush Empire

Box Office: 0844 477 2000
; | Buy online: www.ticketweb.co.uk
April 30, 2013 and all usual outlets
. www.sunkillmoon.com

An Academy Events presentation
by arrangement with The Agency Group

DMP presents

PAU

www.paulgilbert.cem

FRI 22 MARCH - 7PM

LONDON

Middle Yard, Cam
London NWT

www.dingwalls.COm
www. dmpuk.com

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15 Gordon Street, London WCIH OAH
wowthebloomsbury.com, www.dmpuk.com

www.academy-events.co.uk / www.myspace.com/academyevents

ПОПИТИ UNCUT LIVE

TEL: 020 3148 2873 FAX: 020 3148 8160

PRIMAVERA
SOUND2015

22 - 26 MAY
BARCELONA

optimus
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30 MAY - O1 JUNE
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ORGANIZED BY: MAIN SPONSORS:
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PRIMAVERA IC .
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AN INTIMATE EVENING WITH

LUCINDA WILLIAMS

Featuring DOUG PETTIBONE

€— = —

18 JUNE - YORK GRAND OPERA HOUSE

WWW.ATGTICKETS.COM

19 JUNE ~ BUXTON OPERA HOUSE

WWW.BUXTONOPERAHOUSE.ORG.UK

27 JUNE ~ LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC HALL

WWW .LIVERPOOLPHIL.COM
www.lucindawilliams.com

ESL, CSM and Moneypenny present

Plus Special «гейш. |
Liverpool Epstein Theatre )
Salisbury City Hall |*
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Bromsgrove Artrix
www.gretchenpeters.com

St Albans The Arena

Phil Jones for ESL and Mean Fiddler present

JOHN COOPER CLARKE

ТАЕ

MAY- SCOTLAND

THUR 16 STIRLING”
TOLBOOTH

SUN 19 DUNDEE”
GARDYNE THEATRE

SAT 18 EDINBURGH" ABERDEEN?
HMV PICTURE HOUSE LEMON TREE

4 UNIQUE SHOWS WITH VERY SPECIAL GUESTS

18 MAY 7 JUNE
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE ~ FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE ~
HMV PICTURE HOUSE, EDINBURGH COLSTON HALL, BRISTOL

1 JUNE 9 JUNE
SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE ~ SUNDAY NIGHT AT
GRAND OPERA HOUSE, YORK THE LONDON PALLADIUM

For Box Office details go to www.johncooperclarke.com

MON 20

АГ ТИ TT "т
11111 IE т!

ESL, DMP & Asgard present

THEA
QILM ORE |

In Concert with Strings & Special Guests

5 May Birmingham Town Hall www.thsh.co.uk
8 May London QEH www.southbank.co.uk
10 May Liverpool Philharmonic www.liverpoolphil.com

ONLINE TICKET AGENTS
www.ticketline.co.uk
0161 832 1111

www.theagilmore.net

www.gigantic.com www.seetickets.com

Campbell Smith Management presents

>”

London Leicester Square Theatre
Tickets from www.gigantic.com

WEDNESDAY
lhe Bridgewater Hall
Manchester |

MAY 8TH

BOX OFFICE: 0844 907 9000 —

www. bridgewater-halleowk |

Old Veltlow Moon q
чаас Feb 26

yyw lL MMYLOLTIARRIS.com * wyw KODNEYCROW ELL. com

BALALLLEATALLLLTTANLLLLEATAALLLEEALLLLLEAALLLLLEUULLLLHULLLLLALLLLLHALLLLH LLLI, UNCUT LIVE

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DHP CONCERTS PRESENTS

OHP CONCERTS ANO FRIENDS BY ARRANGEMENT WITH X-RAY PRESENT

he LEISURE : SOCIETY
APRIL
12 LIVERPOOL 4222772»
ЇЗ NOTTINGHAM Z2 rescue 222/024,
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Books

BY ALLAN JONES

VEN BEFORE IT gets
Е on to The Rolling

Stones, for whom he
worked across four decades
as financial adviser — oras
he puts it, “a combination of
bank manager, psychiatrist
and nanny” — Prince Rupert

z X SE Loewenstein's A Prince
59 NE. NT Among Stones offers by
наново | Way Ofan account of his

' own early life a fascinating
glimpse into a gilded world
of European aristocracy far
removed from the infinitely
more modest beginnings
of the band with whom he
would so unexpectedly be
linked, first rescuing them
from financial disaster
and then with avisionary’s
deft touch turning them

into a commercial juggernaut.

The Loewenstein-Wertheim family into which he
was born, as weare instructed in a densely detailed
15-page appendix, is one of Europe's most noble
ancestral lines. Its bloodlineis a branch ofthe
Bavarian royal house, including various kings, plus
acouple of Holy Roman Emperors, the first king
of independent Greece, Electors Palatine, kings of
Sweden, Hungary, Norway and Denmark, not to
mention two ‘antikings’, whatever they might be,
of Bohemia.

“T came from а certain sort of distinguished
background," he writes, somewhat understating
the case. He grew up in an environment of privilege
and entitlement that was often somewhat tenuous.
The family fortunes were much diminished by his
parents' reckless spending, an inability to manage
their once apparently limitless resources that made
himasa young man a keen student of finance,
concerned not only with making money, but
keeping it. He turned out to be good at both.

After graduating from Oxford, he went to work in
the London offices of New York stockbrokers Bache
&Co. Due to his many and influential connections
throughout the continent, he was soon deployed by
the company to investigate and secure new business
opportunities in Europe, where he spent much of
his time, most of it having rather grand lunches in
opulent surroundings and otherwise attending
lavish dinner parties in illustrious company -
political leaders, international financiers, royalty
(both reigning and deposed), moguls, tycoons,
aristocratic playboys and glamorous figures from
the worlds of music, cinema, theatre, opera and
dance. At one of the smaller dinners to which he
was invited, he mentions almost in passing, he
shared a table with Maria Callas, Ingrid Bergman
and the Duchess of Windsor.

In 1963, he became managing director of a
merchant bank, Leopold Joseph, in the City of
London, in which capacity five years later he was
approached by the antiques dealer Christopher
Gibbs, who as aleading socialite and member of
Swinging London's Chelsea Set was an intimate
of the Stones and especially close to Mick and Keith.
As Gibbs explained to an intrigued Prince Rupert,
Mick had become increasingly concerned about the
Stones' financial position and the worrying fact that
despite all the records they'd sold they seemed to
have no money. He wanted to know where it had
gone and why no more appeared to be coming in.
Could Prince Rupert perhaps investigate with a view
to the future management of the Stones' finances?

Aman oftastes too refined to recognise any
musical merit whatsoever in the kind of racket

A Prince Among
Stones: That
Business With
The Rolling
Stones And Other
Adventures
Prince Rupert
Loewenstein
BLOOMSBURY

8/10

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44

famously made by theStones, about which heis
hilariously disapproving, he was nevertheless
charmed sufficiently by Jagger when they met to
accepta formal invitation to manage the Stones’
business affairs.

Thus began a 40-year association which in the
firstinstance meant urgently getting them out of
pernicious contracts with their record company,
Decca, and the management clutches of Allen Klein,
who he quickly realised had been syphoning off
millions from the band's income that properly
should have gone to them, thanks to which dubious
accountancy the Stones were virtually broke and
facing a hefty tax bill that would account for up to 98
per cent of theirincome, which they could not afford
to pay. His first recommendation was to quit the UK
— the south of France was his preferred destination
for their exile — while he negotiated their tax
liabilities with the Inland Revenue and sought their
extrication from current contracts with Decca and
Klein, who he pithily describes as “oily and
aggressive". He soon had them out of the deal with
Decca, and would reach an accommodation with
the Revenue. But Klein was another matter.

The 17 years of litigation that Klein instigated
was a test of both Loewenstein's patience and
ingenuity and provides the book with some of its
most colourful anecdotes. He recalls, for instance,

a particularly intense negotiating session with Klein
and lawyers in New York in May 1972, that dragged
on for many hours with both parties in unforgiving
mood. Mick and Keith, who were also in attendance,
atone point went out for dinner, returning a while
later with what Prince Rupert describes as “а couple
of dancing girls", with whom they were quickly
sequestered in a room from which the sounds of
raucous partying were soon heard. "This vastly
lightened the proceedings," he drily notes.

Elsewhere, heis equally wry about Mick, who up
toa point heclearly admires, both as a performer
and to a slightly lesser extent for his good business
sense. In other ways, he often seems to have found
Mick rather ridiculous and there's a very funny

"He plays money like! play
guitar": Keith Richards
with Prince Rupert
Loewenstein ata Stones
record dealsigning with
Virgin, London,1991

account of Jagger turning up toa ball Loewenstein
hosted at his Holland Park home - a modest bash for
500 guests, including Princess Margaret and the
Maharaja of Jaipur - wearing “what I can only
describe as a rustic smock. He looked like a cross
between a milkmaid and one of the Evzones, the
soldiers who guard the Tomb of the Unknown
Soldier in Athens."

He was not always impressed by Mick’s lack of
good manners, much valued of course in Prince
Rupert’s natural circle of aristos and toffs, among
whom punctuality was a paramount virtue. He
was thus appalled by Mick’s frequent tardiness
and infuriating habit of turning up unforgivably
late for dinner parties and weekend beanos at
various posh country piles. Sometimes, he would
not turn up at all and subsequently fail to offer the
appropriate apology (one's head on a plate would
barely have sufficed), an unpardonable sin. While
he nevertheless generally hit it off with Mick, he
found it hard at first to get close to a suspicious Keith
Richards, who for some months refused to meet him.
When they did meet, he was surprised to discover
he perhaps liked Keith more. “I saw that Keith was –
and I hesitate to say this - the most intelligent mind
ofthe band," he writes. Like so many before and
since, he was not immune to Keith's more raffish
inclinations and recounts with some relish a story
about Keith pissing out ofthe window ofa hotel
room in which yet another life-sapping business
meeting was entering its umpteenth hour.

During his time with theStones, it's fairto say
Loewenstein pioneered new ways of maximising
their earnings, especially via tour sponsorships that
others would quickly learn from, even as he often
had to deal with the regular toxicity between Mick
and Keith. In the end, he became exasperated by
their failureto seize upon a new financialinitiative
he presented to them after painstaking preparation.
Exhausted by their interminable dithering, he
concluded there was no more he could usefully
do for them and in March 2008 duly retired, still
without a good word to say about their music.

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 117

GETTY IMAGES, ANDREW CATLIN

OBITUARIES

Not Fade Away

Fondly remembered this month...

SHADOW
MORTON

Songwriter, producer
1940-2013

HE HIT THAT launched

George ‘Shadow’

Morton’s career was

supposedly written

in just over 20 minutes,
as a frantic response to a challenge
from established Brill Building
songwriter Jeff Barry. The latter,
suspicious of Morton’s intentions
towards his writing partner and
future wife Ellie Greenwich, had
told the Brill Building wannabe to
prove himself by creating a
memorable tune. Morton then
enlisted an unknown girl group
from Queens to cut a demo. The
result was *Remember (Walking In
TheSand)", which promptly shot
TheShangri-Las to No 5 on the US
chart. It was the beginning of a
defining era for both Morton and
the group. Follow-up “Leader Of
The Pack”, produced by Morton and
co-written with Barry and
Greenwich, became a Billboard
chart-topper. Requiring 63 takes,

‘BUTCH’ MORRIS

Jazz cornettist, creator of
‘conduction’

1947-2013

CALIFORNIAN LAWRENCE
‘BUTCH’ MORRIS began his career
as acornettist in the West Coast free
jazz movement of the early 70s. But
itwasn'tuntil moving to NYC later
іп the decade, where he became
active in the loft-jazz scene, that
heset about formulating the
technique that made his name. His
work with tenor saxophonist David
Murray, for whom he would often
direct a large ensemble of players,
led to his development of
‘conduction’. The idea was that
Morris, via hand gestures and
baton figures, would conduct
improvising musicians, creating
spontaneous arrangements and
exploring the idea ofunconscious
structure. These experiments were
finally issued in 1995 as Testament:
A Conduction Collection, a
mammoth 10CD set recorded

118 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

Leader of the pack: Shadow
Morton (farright),ina
Manhattantheatrein

the mid-'60s, with Ellie
Greenwich and Jeff Barr

the song carried the same giddy
rush of teen psychodrama as Phil
Spector's work with The Ronettes.
Itwas alsoa personal triumph for
the perfectionist Morton. “I can
remember spending hour after
hour on those vocals,” he told
interviewer Richard Arfin in 1991,
“how to say something, whatit was
about. I was more a director than I

between '88-95. By the end of the
905, his techniques had crossed
over into the worlds of theatre,
dance and film. As a sideman,
Morris also appeared on six LPs
apiece with Murray and avant-sax
player Frank Lowe, alongside
Wayne Horvitz's 1983 LP, Some
Order, Long Understood.

CECIL WOMACK
Soul/R'n'B singer
1947-2013

CECIL WOMACK'S FIRST big break
arrived in the late'50s when soul
singer Sam Cooke became mentor
to The Womack Brothers, the
gospel group he'd formed with
siblings Bobby, Harry, Friendly and
Curtis. Cooke promptly took them
on tour, convincing them to change
their name to The Valentinos and
embrace secular music. They
enjoyed a handful of hits on
Cooke's SAR label, the most
prominent being "It's All Over
Now", covered by The Rolling

was a producer." Morton's other
major successes with The Shangri-
Las were "Give Him A Great Big
Kiss" and “I Can Never Go Home
Anymore”. He later admitted: “I
lucked out. Four girls who fell into
my lap from the get-go, and I never
realised how much talent I had on
my hands. Mary [Weiss] and the
others had the ability to make my

Stones in 1964. The Valentinos
dissolved later that year, in the
aftermath of Cooke's murder
inanLA motel room. In 1966
Womack married Motown star
Mary Wells, for whom he wrote
and produced, before divorcing a
decade later. The split allowed him
to wed Cooke's daughter Linda in
1977, upon which he entered the
most successful partnership of his
career as R'n'Bduo Womack &
Womack. Their biggest hit was
1988's infectious "Teardrops",
which has since been covered

by the likes of Elton John,

stories believable." Morton went on
to produce Janis Ian's 1967 hit
"Society's Child", Iron Butterfly's
signature song, “In-A-Gadda-Da-
Vida", and 1974's Too Much Too
Soon, the second New York Dolls
album. Producer Mark Ronson has
admitted that Morton's songs were a
biginspiration on Amy Winehouse's
2006 opus, Back To Black.

Sugababes and The xx. Cecil's
other songwriting credits include
The O’Jays, Teddy Pendergrass
and George Benson.

NIC POTTER
Prog-rock bassist
1951-2013

“HE WAS A natural talent, driven
by instinct and capable of working
out instant basslines out of
material that the others had
already been rehearsing,” Van der
Graaf Generator's David Jackson
observed of teenage bassist Nic
Potter, who joined the band in
September 1969. Potter, formerly
of The Misunderstood, played on
theinnovative proggers' second
album, The Least We Can Do Is
Wave To Each Other, before
quitting during the recording of
1970 follow-up H To He, Who Am
The Only One. He went on to work
with Jeff Beck, Chuck Berry, Rare
Bird and Magna Carta, before
rejoining VdGG in 1977.

DONALD
BYRD

Jazz trumpeter
1932-2013

THE RICH, ELEGANT tones of Donald Byrd
marked him out as one of the jazz world's
elite trumpeters from the late '50s through
to the'60s. It was an era that saw him
record with Cannonball Adderley, John
Coltrane, Sonny Rollins and Dexter
Gordon, among many others, after
initially joining Art Blakey's Jazz
Messengers in 1955. For three yearsuntil
1961, alongside sax player Pepper Adams,
Byrd led his own bebop group. That year's
Royal Flush was notable for the Blue Note
debut of pianist Herbie Hancock, who
stuck around for the classic hard bop
follow-up, Free Form. Byrd became
something of a mentor to Hancock, who
called him *a born educator, it seems to
bein his blood, and he really tried to
encourage the development of creativity".

Byrd's legendary status was sealed during
the’7os, when he reinvented himself as a
jazz fusion pioneer, liberally dousing his
compositions with funk and R'n'B. 1973's
Black Byrd, produced by Larry Mizell and
featuring sibling Fonce on additional
trumpet, became one ofthe biggest Blue
Notesellersin the label's history. He
reunited with the Mizell brothers for three
more major successes: Street Lady,
Stepping Into Tomorrow and Places And
Spaces. Byrd's dilution of his earlier style
often proved too much for the hardline
purists. *The jazz people started eating
on me," he bemoaned. In 1973 he founded
The Blackbyrds, a fusion outfit that
corralled some of his best music students
at Howard University in Washington, DC.
“Rock Creek Park”, one of a number of
R’n’Bhits, was later sampled by Public
Enemy and featured on the soundtrack

of 1991 Brit-flick Young Soul Rebels. Nas
also used Byrd’s “Flight Time” to underpin
1994’s “NY State Of Mind”. During the
‘gos, Byrd hooked up with Gang Starr's
Guru for two volumes of the latter’s
Jazzmatazz series.

Donald Byrd

poses foraBlue

Note photoshoot

inthe early’60s

STEVE KNIGHT
Mountain keyboardist
1935-2013

FELIX PAPPALARDI ALREADY
knew multi-instrumentalist

Steve Knight from his time
producing New York combo The
Peacemakers, who recorded one
album as The Devil's Anvil in 1967.
Impressed by Knight’s skills on
keyboard, Pappalardi drafted him
into new outfit Mountain two years
later. The band’s heaving rock
sound, fronted by Leslie West,
brought them a modicum of
success in the early '70s, most
notably “Mississippi Queen” and

the mighty “Nantucket Sleighride”.

Knight returned to his first calling,
traditional jazz, when Mountain
split in 1972, before becoming a
door engineer and songwriter,
occasionally popping up onstage
at reunion shows over the years.

PATTY ANDREWS
The youngest Andrews Sister
1918-2013

LEAD SINGER PATTY ANDREWS
was just seven years old when she
first formed The Andrews Sisters
with older siblings Maxene and
LaVerne. In a career spanning four
decades, the original group landed
113 chart hits, selling around 75
million copies and making them
the most successful female vocal
outfitin history. Their close
harmonies and jump blues
approach were epitomised by
1941's worldwide hit *Boogie

Woogie Bugle Boy". TheSisters
splitin 1951 when Patty joined
another band, attributing the
break-up to the sudden death of
their parents. After LaVerne died
of cancer in 1967, Maxene and
Patty briefly pressed on as a duo.

RICK HUXLEY

Dave Clark Five bassist
1940-2013

THEDAVECLARK FIVE, unlikely
asit may seem, were once
considered The Beatles' biggest
rivalson the British and American
pop scene. “Glad All Over”, driven
by thethumping beat of drummer
Clark and the thick bass groove of
Rick Huxley, usurped “I Want To
Hold Your Hand” as No1inJanuary
1964. The combo swiftly followed
up with the equally nagging “Bits
And Pieces”, which stopped just
shy of the top spot. In March that

The Dave
ClarkFive, |
1965: with Rick |
Huxley,left

| year, they followed the Fabs by

becoming the second British
Invasion band to appear on The Ed
Sullivan Show. Huxley, who joined
the group on its inception in 1958,
played on all of their signal hits,
including Billboard chart-topper
“Over And Over” and “Catch Us If
You Can", from the 1965 film ofthe
same name in which the DC5
starred. When they disbanded in
1970, he moved into the property
business. He wasin attendance
when Tom Hanks inducted them
into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame
in 2008.

'"BUBS' WHITE

Bonzos/Viv Stanshall guitarist
1944-2013

VIV STANSHALL'S HABIT of
seeking out prospective
bandmates based on appearance
as much as musical talent was

" M

^ ©, i <

- ] & L^ L]
Ax ТАЧ М...

perfectly embodied in Anthony
‘Bubs’ White. Supporting the
Bonzo Dog Band one night at a
Cambridge May Ball, the 22-stone
guitarist, with long hair and
bowtie, clearly caught Stanshall's
eye. “Nothing was said on the
night," White recalled. *But a few
weeks later there was an advert in
Melody Maker, saying the Bonzos
were looking for this fat guitarist
from Cambridge." White played
on the band's 1972 farewell, Let's
Make Up And Be Friendly and
featured in Stanshall’s band for
Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead
two years later.

PRECIOUS BRYANT
Georgia blues guitarist
1942-2013

PRECIOUS BRYANT CAMEfrom
thesametradition of great Georgia
blueswomen as Ma Rainey and
Ida Cox. Her fingerpicking guitar
style and soulful voice were first
recorded in 1969 by Atlanta
folklorist George Mitchell, who
cited herasa *Georgia musical
treasure". By the early '8os she'd
become afixture of Southern
bluesfestivals, though her debut
album, Fool Me Good, didn'tland
until 2002. Comprising original
tunes, reworkings of Blind Willie
McTell songs and old spirituals,
the acoustic set brought her a
couple of nominations at the
WCHandy Awards. Her 2005
follow-up The Truthincluded
stirring covers of Willie Dixon
and Irma Thomas.

ROB HUGHES

APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 119

GETTY IMAGES, REX FEATURES

GINNY WINN/MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES

LETTERS

Feedback...

Email allan_jones@ipcmedia.com or write to: Uncut Feedback, 9th Floor, Blue Fin Building,
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REMEMBERING
GRAM

Whoa! I am a bit overwhelmed

at what I found in the pages of

the February 2013 issue of Uncut.
Ihave been trying to cut down

on the number of British music
publications I buy due to their cost
in the States, but Inever seem to be
able to resist Uncut, and with Gram
Parsons on the cover, Take 189 left
me with no choice but to ante up.
Iwasas much ofa fan of Gram

Parsons as of The Byrds' Sweetheart

album, but The Gilded Palace Of Sin
became and has remained one
of my top five of all time — yes,
including the fuzz pedal steel that
Elvis Costello called a *gimmick"
of which GP was “mercifully free".
If the fusion that was evident on
the Gilded Palace album failed
to move Costello, he has a big
problem. But I will confess that
my taste in music has always been

extremely eclectic, which is another

reason this recent issue moved me
so much. AsI pored back over page
after page, Isaw that there were
articles on Kraftwerk, Joe Cocker,

Ray Davies, Camper Van Beethoven

(Santa Cruz compatriots), Aaron
Neville and Shuggie Otis, as well as
(sadly and unanticipated) an obit
for Ed Cassidy from one of my all-
time favourite bands, Spirit — all
celebratory ofthe same sort of
eclecticism. Then, at the end of the
issue, I discovered an artist new to
me - David Thomas of Pere Ubu -
with taste that veers from the MC5
(what can I say!?) through Curtis
Mayfield, King Crimson and
Captain Beefheart. Life is too short
for anyone to be able to absorb the
music of every artist celebrated by
Uncut, but I’m definitely going to be
checking out Pere Ubu, and I have
to thank Uncut once again for its
many reminders as wellas
introductions. A great issue!
Roger Cloud, via email

...Re: your recent Gram Parsons
cover story. Here’s the thing about
“country rock”. We all know what it
meansin the common parlance:
The Byrds, the Burritos and their
lesser imitators and heirs, such as
Poco and the Eagles. But to pretend
that Gram Parsons or anyone else
“invented” it, or that he and others
were not drawing on a deep well, is
simply absurd. The *country" in

120 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

Cosmic countryman
GramParsons,Los
Angeles, June1973

rockis as organic and as old (or
older) than rock itself. Elvis Presley
was country rock. Jerry Lee Lewis
became a great country singer
because he always was one.

The Everly Brothers were country
rock. The Delmore Brothers came
perilously close, as did Hank
Williams with *Move It On Over".
Then there's all the country
“boogie” ofthe late 40s and early
505, not to mention that The Beatles
covered a Buck Owens tune.

In fact, one ofthe untold (or, at
least, less frequently told) stories
of rock music is the influence
that country music and country
musicians had on it. Gram Parsons
may have come as close as anyone
to perfecting it, but he hardly
invented it. Cosmic American
Music, indeed.

Derek T Ground, Toronto, Ontario

...As someone who in the past year
has flitted between Uncut and
similar publications, Iam writing
to say that so far in 2013 I have stuck
with Uncut. This is because
although I have heard of Gram
Parsons and Tom Waits I don't
actually know too much about them
or their music. It makes a great
change from reading yet another
article about the usual suspects
such as Pink Floyd or The Beatles.
Ialso prefer listening to cover CDs
of new or more obscure music as T
am sent on pleasurable voyages of
discovery, especially in Americana.
It would be great as well to read

and listen to new and upcoming
bands and artists. I do like the
much improved Reviews section,

so please keep up the good work
and I will stick with just your
publication during the coming year.
Ben Peel, Skegness, Lincolnshire

...1 greatly enjoyed your beautiful
article about Gram Parsons. In my
opinion, a mention of Bernie
Leadon's ode to Parsons (*My Man")
wouldn't have looked out of place in
the article. I was rather surprised,
though, by Byron Berline's remark
about Clarence White's funeral:
“They didn't... play any music."

In the song notes on The Byrds’
album Farther Along (2000 reissue)
it states: “Farther Along’...
Arranged by Clarence White...

Its hymnal qualities were put to
poignant use in 1973 when Gram
Parsons and Bernie Leadon sang
the song at White’s funeral.”

Peter H Kort, The Netherlands

LIVING IN THE
VIRTUAL WORLD
February 4 was a big date in my
calendar, as it was the day the
new Ron Sexsmith album, Forever
Endeavour, was released. OK, I
accept that maybe Ron’s not to
everyone’s taste (‘a bit miserable’,
was my friend’s assessment) but to
his followers he’s something akin
toademi-god. Having read the
enthusiastic music magazine
reviews, then the weekend
newspaper reviews (‘a gem’, I think
The Sunday Times said), I decided
not to accept the prompt from
Amazon (expected arrival February
6 or 7), but to do it the old way and
buy it from a record shop and play it
actually on the day of release.
There lay the problem. Being
on the road that day, I first tried
Nottingham Tesco and Sainsbury’s
-along shot, I know, and

unsurprisingly, no joy - One
Direction and The Best Of Tina
Turner aplenty, but a ‘Ron Who?’
from the assistant. My next port of
call was Bradford – I parked up and
walked around the city centre, but
couldn’t even find any sort of record
shop. Nexta move onto Keighley,
but the locals said that there

was no CD shop now left in the
town. Late afternoon I ended up at
Huddersfield HMV - surely mission
accomplished - but again, no Ron.

I was told that, while being run in
administration, only certain
suppliers were still agreeing to
send in new releases.

Icame home, despondent,
at not being able to find a way to
physically buy and play a CD that
day. OK, I’ve ordered it today, some
days later, from Amazon and will
get it shortly but I can’t help looking
back to younger days - leafing
through LP covers in Nottingham
Central Market and discovering
the first album by Blood, Sweat &
Tears, or the local small record shop
and buying the first Black Sabbath
album, mainly on the strength
of the cover.

OK, both albums maybe haven’t
stood the test of time but both
contained gems which to a young
14-year-old were priceless
discoveries. No doubt Га pushed
past some old-timers, as I am now,
bemoaning the lack of 78s in the
shops these days. But at least there
were shops actually selling music.
Garry Perkin, Lambley, Notts

AS TEAR GAS
GOES BY

Your Family retrospective in the
February issue was most welcome.
In fact, it brought tears to my eyes —
of the most literal kind. A huge
Family fan ever since discovering
them via American fanzine Trouser
Press, І got to see the band open for
Elton John on his '72 US tour, in
Greensboro, NC (the South not
being the likeliest meeting ground
for Family acolytes, 11 grant you,
but still...).

Family delivered, in spades,
with Chappo even leaping off the
stage near the end of the band’s
setin an admirable though
ultimately pointless attempt to
get areaction out of the first 10
rows or so of still-arriving EJ fans.
That some nutcase later decided
to lob a tear gas canister into the
crowd three quarters of the way
through Elton's performance and
duly setting off a stampede for the
exits — ask Roger, I bet he will
remember it – only served to cement
the concert in my mind as one of
my most memorable ever. I weep
even now.

Fred Mills, Raleigh, NC

CROSSWORD QUT

..a copy ofthe new
David Bowie album The
Next Day onCD....

HOWTOENTER

The lettersin the shaded squares form an anagram ofa song by David Bowie. When you've
worked out whatit is, send your answer to: Uncut April 2013 Xword Comp, oth floor,

Blue Fin Building, 110 Southwark St, London SE1 oSU. The first correct entry picked at
random will win a prize. Closing date: March 27, 2013. This competition is only open to

European residents.

CLUES ACROSS

1+5A More of howto ‘Murder Ballads’ on
satellite TV? Youcan shove it! (4-3-3-4)

9 Withoutshowing mercy, this wasJimmy
Pageand Robert Plant ‘Unledded’ livein
1994 (2-7)

10 (See28 down)

11SistersEste, Danielleand Alana
are “Forever” in their LA group (4)
12 The shape ofanold Neil Young live
album ornewstudioalbum from indie
band Everything Everything (3)

13 (See 3 down)

15 Stevie Wonder, when he was ‘Little’,
was tenseand nervous (7)

18 (See17 down)

20 0neoftheMen At Workis making
thiswhilethesunshines(3)
21Headingeasttoterriblescenes of
aLucinda Williams recording (7)

23 Radiostation begins with some music
from Todd Rundgren’s Utopia (2)

24*2D “You blow a fuse, zing boom/The
devilcuts loose, zing boom”, 1995 (3-2-2-5)
27 (See4 down)

2a9The_ Sticks, Welshindie band
whose albums include The Great White
Wonder (4)

30 (See34 down)

31"Andthepeople bowed and prayed, to the
... godtheymade",from Simon &
Garfunkel’s “The Sound OfSilence" (4)

36 Alt-rock band comprising Billy Lunn,
Charlotte Cooper and Josh Morgan (7)

37 Nearlyinthe gutterwith this beast of

a band from Ireland who were ‘on theturn'

іп 1997 (7)

ANSWERS:TAKE189

ACROSS

1Long Wave, 5 Loaded,
9Strapped, 10+24D Fear Of
Music, 12 Rollo, 13 Nilsson,
15+27D Misty Blue, 19
Aisha, 20 Krall, 21428A

33 Cream.
DOWN

Pink Fairies, 22 Drama,
25 Echo, 29 Soldier, 32 Yuck,

CLUES DOWN

1+27D Hesetsa poptune differently on this
Sensational Alex Harvey Band album (9-5)
2(See 24 across)

3+13A “I would love to take her home, but
her heartis made of stone”, 1973 (4-4)
4+27A George Harrison album that had
some additional feeling put to it (5-7)

5 “Well, there’s twoswinging honeys for
every guy/Andallyougotta dois just wink
your eye”, 1963 (4-4)

6 We’ll get the picture of Madonna
performing this (5-3)

7 Heading west toaterribly loud
performance from Alice In Chains (5)
8+25D “Ever since you left, it just gets worse
livingoutin — " Deacon Blue (4-4)
14 Honestly, thisisa genuine album from
The Jeff Beck Group (5)

16 The brilliance of Warren Zevon, as noted
by his ‘best of’ album title (6)

17+18A Doves single? A fraidit’s just gone
(5-4-3-4)

19 They've deemed their newalbum to be
‘Wonderful, Glorious’ (4)

22 Tom Jones flirtation with Mousse T (3-4)
25 (See 8 down)

26 (See 35 down)

27 (See1down)

28+10AJAreggae band hada Chill Out (5-5)
32"Andinthe | theloveyoutakeisequal
totheloveyou make", The Beatles (3)
33Adamski had energy by the sound

ofit (1-1-1)

34+30A The Doors’ final LPwithJim (1-1-5)
35+26D Frenchman who had 1999 No 1 hit

| with “Flat Beat” (2-4)

8 Duffy, 11 Alas,
16+14A isle Of Wight, 17
Mama, 23 Rainy, 26 Ringo,
30+34AIAm Kloot, 31 RAK.

1 Losers Weepers, 2No
Religion, 3 Wipe Out, 4
Vietnam, 6+18D Odessey
And Oracle, 7 Darkness,

HIDDENANSWER
“The NewSoftShoe”

Compiled: Trevor Hungerford

UNCUT

TAKE 191 | APRIL 2013

IPC Media, oth Floor, BlueFin Building,
110 Southwark Street, London SE1 oSU
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COVER PHOTO: Jimmy King

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APRIL 2013 | UNCUT | 121

MY LIFE IN MUSIC
Billy Bragg

Life's a riot! The Bard Of Barking's musical education — whatever
made listening to Rossini subversive?

The record that set My favourite record
me apart from my by a Face
schoolmates SI Ban

Ronnie Lane 1974

The Times They Are
‚ A-Changin' Bob Dylan 194

ThecopyIhaveIswapped with a guy I went
to school with, for my copy of The Jackson

The kid next door, who taught me how to
play guitar, was obsessed by the Faces and,
when Rod Stewart went to America, it was
likea total betrayal. But then bassist Ronnie

»'s Greatest Hits. I took it home and it didn't just take me to a place where Lane went offto the country and started making LPs of old Faces songs,
the politics were raw... it was an unearthly sound. Dylan was like Tolstoy songs from music hall, songs by Fats Domino, country standards... but with
compared to Elton John and Rod Stewart, which is what my mates were into. a lovely, English pastoral feel. There are some great originals here, too.

The album that made
me realise pop could
be political

The record that proved
DIY could work

The Clash

The Clash 1977

My mates and I had absolutely no idea how
to get out ofour parents' back rooms and
do gigs, but then we saw The Clash. Punk
blew the doors offthe idea that in order to

' Motown Chartbusters Vol.5
Various Artists 1971

Ididn’t come from a political family; politics
came to me exclusively through music. I was

into black American soul-pop and this was very important as it puts Smokey beina fends you iad to be like The Rolling Stones. We saw them on the first
Robinson's “Tears Of A Clown" next to "War" by Edwin Starr. These songs night of the “White Riot" tour, which was when we wrenched punk out of the
made methink pop music should have something to say about the world. guardians' hands and took control.

My roundabout The album that led

introduction to mue жын me to write "Between

Woody Guthrie The Wars"

Paradise And Lunch Handful Of Earth

Ry Cooder 1974 Dick Gaughan 1981

In 1977, my littleband wanted to go on holiday A Scottish political folk singer. It has “The

and play music all night long. We ended up World Turned Upside Down" on it, which I’ve
inafarmhouse run by Ruan O'Lochlainn and his wife, and never really came also recorded. It reminded me folk could be political, when in the 70s, it was
home. He wasinto Ry Cooder and played this all the time. Cooder introduced all "Gaudete". In'84, Iwent up to the minefields to do a gig and saw 80-year-old
me to Woody Guthrie and other US songwriters from the early 20th Century. Jock Purdon sitting down singing unaccompanied; Gaughan was the pointer.

: — . 4 • |
ү The greatest glam ™ |The record that did just

record ever made what I wanted to do

A Clockwork Orange OST The Smiths

Various Artists 1972 The Smiths 1984

The thing people forget about glam is the
macho undertones; if you were a man in the
'70s and went out with makeup on, you'd
better be hard as bricks. It's ended up being

Iwasfortunateto be their contemporary,
asthey were writing when chart pop was
dominated by two geezers and a synthesiser
— Pet Shop Boys, Nik Kershaw, Howard Jones

all about Bowie, which is a different vibe. This soundtrack is great, with all -and there was something gritty about The Smiths. The lyrics were brilliant,
those electronic versions of songs by Walter Carlos, later Wendy, and it made the guitar was great; “Back To The Old House" isa classic, understated love
listening to Rossini subversive. I used to do my homework listening to this. song — so poignant, so beautiful. And that’s exactly what I was trying to write.

Billy Bragg's Tooth & Nail, released by Cooking Vinyl on March 18, is reviewed on page 80

INNEXT MONTHS UNCUT: “He would've been severely damaged if the bouncers hadn't pulled me off him...”

INTERVIEW: SHARON O'CONNELL

122 | UNCUT | APRIL 2013

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